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HISTORY OF LOUISIAM 



A SERIES OF LECTURES. 



BY 

CHARLES GAYARRE. 



UTILE DULCI. 



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NEW-YORK : 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 

PHILADELPHIA : 

GEO. S. APPLETON, 148 CHESNUT-STREET. 

M DCCC XLVIII. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, 

By CHARLES GAYARRE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the United States District Court for the District of Louisians 



^'^.^ 



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CONTENTS. 



Preface 9 

FIRST LECTURE. 

Primitive state of the Country — Expedition of De Soto in 1539 — 
His Death — Discovery of the Mississippi in 1673, by Father 
Marquette and Joliet — They are followed in 1682 by La Salle 
AND the Chevalier de Tonti — Assassination of La Salle . 23 

SECOND LECTURE. 

Arrival of Iberville and Bienville — Settlement of a French 
Colony in Louisiana — Sauvolle, first Governor — Events and 
Characters in Louisiana, or connected with that Colony, frop-i 
La Salle's Death, in 1687, to 1701 53 

THIRD LECTURE. 

Situation of the Colony from 1701 to 1712— The Petticoat In- 
surrection — History and Death of Iberville — Bienville, the 
second Governor of Louisiana — History of Anthony Crozat, 
the great Banker — Concession of Louisiana to him . 119 

FOURTH LECTURE. 

Lamothe Cadillac, Governor of Louisiana — Situation of the 
Colony in 1713 — Feud between Cadillac and Bienville — Cha- 
racter of Richebourg — First Expedition against the Natchez 
— De l'Epinay succeeds Cadillac — The Curate de la Vente — 
Expedition of St. Dennis to Mexico — His Adventures — Jal- 
LOT, the Surgeon — In 1717 Crozat gives up his Charter — His 
Death 171 



PREFACE. 



If every man's life were closely analyzed, accident, 
or what seems to be so to human apprehension, and 
what usually goes by that name, whatever it may really 
be, would be discovered to act a more conspicuous part 
and to possess a more controlling influence than pre- 
conception, and that volition which proceeds from long 
meditated design. My writing the history of Louisi- 
ana, from the expedition of De Soto in 1539, to the 
final and complete establishment of the Spanish govern- 
ment in 17G9, after a spirited resistance from the French 
colonists, was owing to an accidental circumstance, 
which, in the shape of disease, drove me from a seat I 
had lately obtained in the Senate of the United States, 
but which, to my intense regret, I had not the good 
fortune to occupy. Travelling for health, not from free 
agency, but a slave to compulsion, I dwelt several years 
in France. In the peculiar state in which my mind 

2 



10 PREFACE. 

then was, if its attention had not been forcibly diverted 
from what it brooded over, the anguish under which it 
sickened, from many causes, would soon have not been 
endurable. I sought for a remedy : I looked into musty 
archives — I gathered materials — and subsequently be- 
came a historian, or rather a mere pretender to that 
name. 

Last year, as circumstance or accident would have 
it, I was invited by the managers of the People's Ly- 
ceum to deliver a Lecture before their Society. The 
invitation was flattering, but came in a most inoppor- 
tune moment. The Legislature was then in session, 
and, as Secretary of State, my duties and my daily rela- 
tions with the members of that honorable body were 
such as to allow me very little leisure. I could not 
decline, however, the honor conferred upon me ; and 
with a mind engrossed by other subjects, and with a 
hurried pen, I wrote the first Lecture, which is now 
introduced to the reader as the leading one in this vol- 
ume. It happened to give satisfaction : friends desired 
its publication : their desire was complied with ; and 
in the June and July numbers of De Bow's Commer- 
cial Review, the discourse which I had delivered before 
the People's Lyceum made its appearance. I attached 



PREFACE. 11 

SO little importance to this trifling production, the off*- 
spring of an hour's thought, that I was greatly amazed 
at the encomium it elicited from newspapers, in which 
it was copied at length, in several parts of the United 
States. 

What ! said I to myself, am I an unnatural father, 
and has my child more merit than I imagined ? As I 
was pondering upon this grave question, the last epi- 
demic took possession of New Orleans by storm. If 1 
ventured into the streets for exercise or occupation, I 
immediately suffered intolerable annoyance from the 
stinging darts of Apollo, through the ineffectual texture 
of my straw hat, and my eyes were greeted with nothing 
but the sight of dogs, physicians, and hearses. If I re- 
mained at home, seeking tranquillity under the protec- 
tion of the household gods of celibacy, indiscreet visitors 
would come in, and talk of nothing else but of the dying 
and the dead. One day I got into a very sinful fit of 
passion, and summoning up my servant George to my 
august presence, I said to him, " George, you are a great 
rascal, are you not?" "Master, I do not know exactly," 
rephed he, scratching his woolly head. " Well, I do 
know it, George, and I am pleased to give you that 
wholesome information. But no matter, I forgive you." 



12 PREFACE. 

" Thank you, master." " I deserve no thanks for what 
I can't help : but stop, don't go yet ; I have something 
more to say." " Master," quoth he, " I wish you would 
make haste, for the milk is on the fire, and I am afraid 
it will boil over." " Out upon the milk, man, and listen 
to me with all the might of your African ears." George 
took an attitude of mixed impatience and resignation, 
and I continued, with more marked emphasis in my 
tone, and with increased dignity in my gesticulation, 
" Did you not lately run away for two months, for what 
reasonable cause, God only know^s ; and did you not 
come back with the face of a whipped dog, telling me 
that you were satisfied with your experiment of that 
great blessing, freedom, and that you would not try it 
any more ? Do not hang down your thick head, as if 
you meant to push it through that big chest of yours ; 
but keep this in mind : if, for a whole week, you allow 
any human body to cross my threshold, I sw^ear (and 
you know I always keep my word) that I'll kick you 
away to the abolitionists. Now vanish from my sight." 
Vv^hat impression this order produced on tliis miserahle 
slave, I do not know, but it was strictly executed. 

After I had dismissed my sable attendant, I found 
myself in the same situation that mnny people frequently 



PREFACE. 13 

find themselves in. I did not know what to do with 
myself. I had neither a w^ife nor children to quarrel 
with ; and as to servants, I hate scolding them — I re- 
serve that for their betters. As to my books, I thought 
I had the right to indulge towards them in any of the 
capricious whims of a lover, and I bent upon their 
tempting and friendly faces a scowling look of defiance. 
One thing was settled in my mind ; — I was determined 
to enjoy the luxury of laziness, and to be, for a while, 
an indolent, unthinking sort of animal, the good-for- 
nothing child of a southern latitude. So, I thrust my 
hands into the pockets of my morning-gown, and 
lounged through every room in my house, staring curi- 
ously at every object, as if it had been new to my eyes. 
For some time, I amused myself with my small 
gallery of paintings, and with a variety of trifles, which 
are the pickings of my travelling days. But alas ! with 
some of them are connected painful recollections of the 
past ; and, much to my regret, I discovered that my 
soul, which I thought I had buried ten fathoms deep in 
the abyss of matter, was beginning to predominate 
again in my mixed nature. I hastily turned my eyes 
from a contemplation, which had interfered with the 
much coveted ease of the brute ; but, as fate would 



14 PREFACE. 

have it, they settled upon some ancestral portraits. As 
I gazed at them, I became abstracted, until it really- 
seemed to me that I saw a sorrowful expression steal 
over their features, as they looked at the last descend- 
ant of their race. I became moody, and felt that one 
of my dark fits was coming on. 

What was to be done ? I was placed in this awk- 
ward dilemma, either to eject my brains from my skull, 
or to stupify them. But my pistols were not loaded, 
and the exertion to do so would have been too great 
with Fahrenheit at 100. I felt tempted to get drunk, 
but unfortunately I can bear no other beverage than 
water. Smoking would, perhaps, have answered the 
purpose, if my attempts at acquiring that attainment 
and all the other quahfications connected with the use 
of tobacco, had not resulted in a sick stomach. I was 
in this unpleasant state of cogitation, when that number 
of De Bow's Review which contains my Lecture on 
the Romance of the History of Louisiana, caught my 
sight, as it was lying on my writing desk. I picked it 
up, and began to fondle my bantling : of course, I be- 
came interested, and all my morbid feelings vanished, 
as it were, by magic. Oh ! how charming it is to have 
a family ! Ladies, which of you will have me ? 



PREFACE, 15 

But I must not wander from my subject. I say, 
then, that I had in my left hand De Bow's Review, 
and, I do not know how, the right one imperceptibly 
exercised some sort of magnetic influence over my 
pen, which was reposing close by, and which flew to 
its fingers, where it stuck. A few minutes after, it was 
dipped in ink, and running over paper at the rate of 
fifty miles an hour, and raising as much smoke as any 
locomotive in the country. 

The three other Lectures, which I submit now to 
the consideration of the reader, are the result of the 
concatenation of accidents or circumstances which I 
have related. 

When I had finished my composition, like most 
people who act first and then set themselves to think- 
ing, I began to guess, as some of my Yankee friends 
would say, whether I could not apply the fruits of my 
labor to some practical purpose. I had achieved one 
thing, it is true — I had rendered seclusion pleasant to 
myself ; but could I not do more ? Would there not 
be sweet satisfaction in extracting something useful to 
my fellow-citizens from the careless and unpretending 
effusions, the object of which had originally been to 
accelerate the flight of a few heavy hours, which I des- 



16 PREFACE. 

cried at a short distance, coming upon me with their 
leaden wings and their gouty feet ! 

To write history, is to narrate events, and to show 
their philosophy, when they are susceptible of any such 
demonstration. When the subject is worthy of it, this 
is a kind of composition of the highest order, and which 
affords to genius an ample scope for the display of all 
its powers. But the information so conveyed, is limit- 
ed to the few, because not suited to the intelligence of 
the many. The number of those who have read Taci- 
tus, Hume, Gibbon, or Clarendon, is comparatively 
small, when opposed to those who have pored with 
delight over the fascinating pages of Walter Scott. 
To relate events, and, instead of elucidating and ana- 
lyzing their philosophy, like the historian, to point out 
the hidden sources of romance which spring from 
them — to show what materials they contain for the 
dramatist, the novelist, the poet, the painter, and for 
all the varied conceptions of the fine arts — is perhaps 
an humbler task, but not without its utility. When 
history is not disfigured by inappropriate invention, but 
merely embellished and made attractive by being set in 
a glittering frame, this artful preparation honies the 
cup of useful knowledge, and makes it acceptable to 



PREFACE. 17 

the lips of the multitude. Through the immortal 
writings of Walter Scott, many have become familiar 
with historical events, and have been induced to study- 
more serious works, who, without that tempting bait, 
would have turned away from what appeared to them 
to be but a dry and barren field, too unpromising to 
invite examination, much less cultivation. To the be- 
witching pen of the wonderful magician of her roman- 
tic hills, Scotland owes more for the popular extension 
of her fame, than to the doings of the united host of 
all her other writers, warriors, and statesmen. 

It was in pursuing such a train of reasoning, that I 
came to the conclusion that the publication of these 
Lectures might show what romantic interest there is in 
the history of Louisiana ; that it might invite some to 
an investigation which, so far, they perhaps thought 
would not repay them for the trouble ; and to study 
with fondness what hitherto had been to them an object 
of disdainful neglect. I have attempted to accumulate 
and to heap up together materials for the use of more 
skilful architects than I am, and have contented myself 
with drawing the faint outlines of literary compositions, 
which, if filled up by the hand of genius, would do for 
Louisiana, on a smaller scale, what has been done for 



18 PREFACE. 

Scotland ; would encircle her waist with the magic 
zone of Romance, and give her those letters-patent of 
nobility, which are recorded for ever in the temple of 
Fame. An humble janitor, I have opened the door to 
those realms where flit the dim shadows of the dead, 
which are said to be anxious to resume life, and which, 
to the delight of the world, and to the glorification of 
my native land, might, at the command of some inspired 
bard, be made to reanimate their deserted bodies. 

Ad fluvium (Mississippi) Deus evocat agmine magno, 
Scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisant 
Rursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti, 

Virgil. 

I give to the world these nugcB series for what they 
are worth. As a pastime, I began with shooting arrows 
at random, and then, gathering inspiration from the 
growing animation of the sport, I aimed at a particular 
object. If the bystanders should think that I have not 
shot too far wide of the mark — if the public, pleased 
with one or two good hits, should put on his white kid 
gloves, and coming up to me with the high-bred cour- 
tesy of a gentleman, should exchange a polite bow, and 
by way of encouragement, should utter those delicate 
compliments which, whether true or not, do honor to 



PREFACE. 19 

the donor and to the donee, (for I hate vulgar praise 
and coarse incense,) I shall deem it my duty to culti- 
vate an acquaintance, which may ripen into friendship, 
and I may, in my endeavors to deserve it, publish 
another series of Lectures. Well-meant criticism, I 
shall delight in, as a means of improvement ; vitupera- 
tion, I do not anticipate from one of so gentle blood ; 
but absolute silence, I shall consider as a broad hint 
not to importune him any more, and I promise to act 
accordingly. The more so, that from the lessons of 
experience, and from knowledge of the world, I feel 
every day more disposed to ensconce myself within a 
nut-shell, and that my ambition has dwindled so much 
in its proportions, that it would be satisfied to rest for 
ever, " sub tegmine fagi," with the commission of 
overseer of a parish road. 

New Orleans, March 1, 1848. 



FIRST LECTURE, 



THE POETRY, 



EOMANCE OF THE HISTOKY OF LOUISIANA. 



FIRST LECTURE. 

Primitive state of the Country — Expedition of De Soto in 1539 — ■ 
His Death — Discovery of the Mississippi in 1673, by Father 
Marquette and Joliet — They are followed in 1682 by La Salle 
AND THE Chevalier de Tonti — Assassination of La Salle, 

Having been invited by a Committee, on behalf of 
the People's Lyceum, to deliver one of their twelve 
annual Lectures, I was not long in selecting the subject 
of my labors. My mind had been lately engaged in 
the composition of the History of Louisiana, and it was 
natural that it should again revert to its favorite object 
of thought, on the same principle which impels the 
mightiest river to obey the laws of declivity, or which 
recalls and confines to its channel its gigantic volume 
of waters, when occasionally deviating from its course. 



24 POETRY IMAGINATION. 

But in reverting now to the History of Louisiana, 
my intention is not to review its diversified features 
with the scrutinizing, unimpassioned, and austere judg- 
ment of the historian. Imposing upon myself a more 
grateful task, because more congenial to my taste, I 
shall take for the object of this Lecture, The Poetry, 
OR THE Romance of the History of Louisiana. 

Poetry is the daughter of Imagination, and imagin- 
ation is, perhaps, one of the highest gifts of Heaven, the 
most refined ethereal part of the mind, because, when 
carried to perfection, it is the combined essence of all 
the finest faculties of the human intellect. There may 
be sound judgment, acute perceptions, depth of thought, 
great powers of conception, of discrimination, of re- 
search, of assimilation, of combination of ideas, without 
imagination, or at least without that part of it which 
elaborates and exalts itself into poetry, but how can we 
conceive the existence of a poetical imagination in its 
highest excellence, without all the other faculties ? 
Without them, what imagination would not be imper- 
fect or diseased ? It is true that without imagination 
there may be a world within the mind, but it is a world 
without light. Cold it remains, and suffering from the 
effects of partial organization, unless by some mighty 
fiat imagination is breathed into the dormant mass, and 
the sun of poetry, emerging in the heaven of the mind, 



POETRY AN ELEMENT OF TRUE GUEATNE;3a'. 25 

illumines and warms the several elements of which it 
is composed, and completes the creation of the intellect. 
Hence the idea of all that is beautiful and great is 
concentrated in the word poetry. There is no grand 
conception of the mind in which that intellectual 
faculty which constitutes poetry is not to be detected. 
What is great and noble, is and must be poetical, and 
what is poetical must partake, in some degree or other, 
of what is great and noble. It is hardly possible to 
conceive an Alexander, a Caesar, a Napoleon, a New- 
ton, a Lycurgus, a Mahomet, a Michael Angelo, a 
Canova, or any other of those wonderful men who have 
carried as far as they could go, the powers of the hu- 
man mind in the several departments in which they 
were used, without supposing them gifted with some 
of those faculties of the imagination which enter into 
the composition of a poetical organization. Thus every 
art and almost every science has its poetry, and it is 
from the unanimous consent of mankind on this subject 
that it has become so common to say " the poetry " of 
music, of sculpture, of architecture, of dancing, of paint- 
ing, of history, and even the poetry of religion, meaning 
that which is most pleasing to the eye or to the mind, 
and ennobling to the soul. We may therefore infer 
from the general feeling to which I have alluded, that 
where the spirit of poetry does not exist, there cannot 
be true greatness ; and it can, I believe, be safely aver- 



26 HISTORY OF LOUISIANA POETICAL. 

red, that to try the gold of all human actions and events, 
of all things and matters, the touchstone of poetry is 
one of the surest. 

I am willing to apply that criterion to Louisiana, 
considered both physically and historically ; I am will- 
ing that my native State, which is but a fragment of 
what Louisiana formerly was, should stand or fall by 
that test, and I do not fear to approach with her the 
seat of judgment. I am prepared to show that her his- 
tory is full of poetry of the highest order and of the 
most varied nature. I have studied the subject con 
amove, and with such reverential enthusiasm, and I 
may say with such filial piety, that it has grown upon 
my heart as well as upon my mind. May I be able to 
do justice to its merits, and to raise within you a cor- 
responding interest to that which I feel ! To support 
the assertion that the history of Louisiana is eminently 
poetical, it will be sufficient to give you short graphical 
descriptions of those interesting events which consti- 
tute her annals. Bright gems they are, encircling her 
brows, diadem- like, and worthy of that star which has 
sprung from her forehead to enrich the American con- 
stellation in the firmament of liberty. 

Three centuries have hardly elapsed, since that im- 
mense territory which extends from the Gulf of Mexico 
to the Lakes of Canada, and which was subsequently 
known under the name of Louisiana, was slumbering 



PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 27 

in its cradle of wilderness, unknown to any of the white 
race to which we belong. Man was there, however, 
but man in his primitive state, claiming as it were, in 
appearance at least, a different origin from ours, or 
being at best a variety of our species. There, was the 
hereditary domain of the red man, living in scattered 
tribes over that magnificent country. Those tribes 
earned their precarious subsistence chiefly by pursuing 
the inhabitants of the earth and of the water ; they 
sheltered themselves in miserable huts, spoke different 
languages, observed contradictory customs, and waged 
fierce war upon each other. Whence they came none 
knew ; none knows, with absolute certainty, to the 
present day ; and the faint gUmmerings of vague tradi- 
tions have afforded little or no light to penetrate into 
the darkness of their mysterious origin. Thus a wide 
field is left open to those dreamy speculations of which 
the imagination is so fond. 

Whence came the Natchez, those worshippers of 
the sun with eastern rites ? How is it that Grecian 
figures and letters are represented on the earthen wares 
of some of those Indian nations ? Is there any truth in 
the supposition that some of those savages whose com- 
plexion approximates most to ours, draw their blood 
from that Welsh colony which is said to have found a 
home in America, many centuries since ? Is it possi- 
ble that Phoenician adventurers were the pilgrim fathers 



28 PRIMITIVE STATE OP THE COUNTRY. 

of some of the aborigines of Louisiana ? What copper- 
colored swarm first issued from Asia, the revered womb 
of mankind, to wend its untraced way to the untenanted 
continent of America ? What fanciful tales could be 
weaved on the powerful Choctaws, or the undaunted 
Chickasaws, or the unconquerable Mobiliens ? There 
the imagination may riot in the poetry of mysterious 
migrations, of human transformations ; in the poetry of 
the forests, of the valleys, of the mountains, of the lakes 
and rivers, as they came fresh and glorious from the 
hand of the Creator, in the poetry of barbaric manners, 
laws, and wars. What heroic poems might not a fu- 
ture Ossian devise on the red monarchs of old Louis- 
iana ! Would not their strange history, in the hands 
of a Tacitus, be as interesting as that of the ancient 
barbarian tribes of Germany, described by his immor- 
tal pen ? Is there in that period of their existence 
which precedes their acquaintance with the sons of 
Europe, nothing which, when placed in contrast with 
their future fate, appeals to the imagination of the mo- 
ralist, of the philosopher, and of the divine ? Who, 
without feeling his whole soul glowing with poetical 
emotions, could sit under yonder gigantic oak, the 
growth of a thousand years, on the top of that hill of 
shells, the sepulchre of man, piled up by his hands, and 
overlooking that placid lake where all would be repose, 
if it were not for that solitary canoe, a moving speck. 



PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 29 

hardly visible in the distance, did it not happen to be 
set in bold relief, by being on that very line where the 
lake meets the horizon, blazing with the last glories of 
the departing sun ? Is not this the very poetry of 
landscape, of Louisianian landscape ? 

When diving into the mysteries of the creation of 
that part of the southwestern world which was once 
comprehended in the limits of Louisiana, will not the 
geologist himself pause, absorbed in astonishment at 
the number of centuries which must have been neces- 
sary to form the delta of the Mississippi ? When he 
discovers successive strata of forests lying many fathoms 
deep on the top of each other ; when he witnesses the 
exhumation of the fossil bones of mammoths, elephants, 
or huge animals of the antediluvian race ; when he 
reads the hieroglyphic records of Nature's wonderful 
doings, left by herself on the very rocks, or other gran- 
ite and calcareous tablets of this country, will he not 
clasp his hands in ecstasy, and exclaim, " Oh ! the dry- 
ness of my study has fled ; there is poetry in the very 
foundation of this extraordinary land !" 

Thus I think that I have shown that the spirit of 
poetry was moving over the face of Louisiana, even in 
her primitive state, and still pervades her natural histo- 
ry. But I have dwelt enough on Louisiana in the dark 
ages of her existence, of which we can know nothing, 
save by vague traditions of the Indians. T^et us ap- 



30 EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 

proach those times where her historical records begin 
to assume some distinct shape. 

On the 31st of May, 1539, the bay of Santo Spiritu, 
in Florida, presented a curious spectacle. Eleven ves- 
sels of quaint shape, bearing the broad banner of Spain, 
were moored close to the shore ; one thousand men of 
infantry, and three hundred and fifty men of cavalry, 
fully equipped, were landing in proud array under the 
command of Hernando De Soto, one of the most illus- 
trious companions of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, 
and reputed one of the best lances of Spain ! " When 
he led in the van of battle, so powerful was his charge," 
says the old chronicler of his exploits, " so broad was 
the bloody passage which he carved out in the ranks of 
the enemy, that ten of his men at arms could with ease 
follow him abreast." He had acquired enormous wealth 
in Peru, and might have rested satisfied, a knight of 
renown, in the government of St. Jago de Cuba, in the 
sweet enjoyment of youth and of power, basking in the 
smiles of his beautiful wife, Isabella de Bobadilla. But 
his adventurous mind scorns such inglorious repose, 
and now he stands erect and full of visions bright, on 
the sandy shore of Florida, whither he comes, with 
feudal pride, by leave of the king, to establish nothing- 
less than a marquisate, ninety miles long by forty-five 
miles wide, and there to rule supreme, a governor for 
life, of all the territory that he can subjugate. Not 



EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 31 

unmindful he, the Christian knight, the hater and con- 
queror of Moorish infidehty, of the souls of his future 
vassals ; for, twenty-two ecclesiastics accompany him 
to preach the word of God. Among his followers are 
gentlemen of the best blood of Spain and of Portugal : 
Don Juan de Guzman ; Pedro Calderon, who, by his 
combined skill and bravery, had won the praises of 
Gonzalvo de Cordova, yclept "the great captain;" 
Vasconcellos de Silva, of Portugal, who for birth and 
courage knew no superior ; Nuno Tobar, a knight 
above fear and reproach ; and Muscoso de Alvarado, 
whom that small host of heroes ranked in their estima- 
tion next to De Soto himself. But I stop an enumera- 
tion which, if I did justice to all, would be too long. 

What materials for romance ! Here is chivalry, 
with all its glittering pomp, its soul-stirring aspirations, 
in full march, with its iron heels and gilded spurs, 
towards the unknown and hitherto unexplored soil of 
Louisiana. In sooth, it must have been a splendid 
sight ! Let us look at the glorious pageantry as it 
sweeps by, through the long vistas of those pine woods ! 
How nobly they bear themselves, those bronzed sons 
of Spain, clad in refulgent armor ! How brave that 
music sounds ! How fleet they move, those Andalusian 
chargers, with arched necks and dilated nostrils ! But 
the whole train suddenly halts in that verdant valley, 
by that bubbling stream, shaded by those venerable 



32 EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 

oaks with gray moss hanging from their branches in 
imitation of the whitening beard of age. Does not the 
whole encampment rise distinct upon yom' minds ? 

The tents with gay pennons, with armorial bear- 
ings ; the proud steed whose impatient foot spurns the 
ground ; those men stretche^d on the velvet grass and 
recruiting their wearied strength by sleep ; some sing- 
ing old Castihan or Moorish roundelays ; others musing 
on the sweet rulers of their souls, left in their distant 
home ; a few kneeling before the officiating priest, at 
the altar which a moment sufficed for their pious ardor 
to erect, under yonder secluded bower ; some burnish- 
ing their arms, others engaged in mimic warfare and 
trials of skill or strength ; De Soto sitting apart with 
his peers in rank if not in command, and intent upon 
developing to them his plans of conquest, while the 
dusky faces of some Indian boys and women in the 
background express wild astonishment. None of the 
warriors of that race are to be seen ; they are reported 
to be absent on a distant hunting excursion. But, 
methinks that at times I spy through the neighboring 
thickets the fierce glance of more than one eye, spark- 
ling with the suppressed fury of anticipated revenge. 
What a scene ! and would it not afford delight to the 
poet's imagination or to the painter's eye ? 

In two ponderous volumes, the historian Garcillasso 
relates the thousand incidents of that romantic expedi- 



EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 33 

tion. What more interesting than the reception of 
Soto at the court of the Princess Cofachiqui, the Dido 
of the wilderness ! What battles, what victories over 
men, over the elements themselves, and over the end- 
less obstacles thrown out by rebellious nature ! What 
incredible physical difficulties overcome by the advanc- 
ing host ! How heroic is the resistance of the Mobiliens 
and of the Alabamas ! With what headlong fury those 
denizens of the forest rush upon the iron clad warriors, 
and dare the thunders of those whom they take to be 
the children of the sun ! How splendidly described is 
the siege of Mobile, where women fought like men, 
and wrapped themselves up in the flames of their de- 
stroyed city rather than surrender to their invaders ! 

But let the conquering hero beware ! Now he is 
encamped on the territory of the Chickasaws, the most 
ferocious of the Indian tribes. And lucky was it that 
Soto was as prudent as he was brave, and slept equally 
prepared for the defence and for the attack. Hark ! in 
the dead of a winter's night, when the cold wind of the 
north, in the month of January, 1541, was howling 
through the leafless trees, a simultaneous howl was 
heard, more hideous far than the voice of the tempest. 
The Indians rush impetuous, with firebrands, and the 
thatched roofs which sheltered the Spaniards are soon 
on fire, threatening them with immediate destruction. 
The horses rearing and plunging in wild aflright, and 

3 



34 EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 

breaking loose from their ligaments ; the undaunted 
Spaniards, half naked, struggling against the devouring 
element and the unsparing foe ; the desperate deeds of 
valor executed by Soto and his companions ; the deep- 
toned shouts of St. Jago and Spain to the rescue ; the 
demon-like shrieks of the red warriors ; the final over- 
throw of the Indians ; the hot pursuit by the light of 
the flaming village ; — form a picture highly exciting to 
the imagination, and cold indeed must he be who does 
not take delight in the strange contrast of the heroic 
warfare of chivalry on one side, and of the untutored 
courage of man in his savage state, on the other. 

It would be too long to follow Soto in his peregri- 
nations during two years, through part of Alabama, 
Mississippi, and Tennessee. At last he stands on the 
banks of the Mississippi, near the spot where now 
flourishes the Egyptian named city of Memphis. He 
crosses the mighty river, and onward he goes, up to 
the White River, while roaming over the territory of 
the Arkansas. Meeting with alternate hospitality and 
hostility on the part of the Indians, he arrives at the 
mouth of the Red River, within the present limits of 
the State of Louisiana. There he was fated to close 
his adventurous career. 

Three years of intense bodily fatigue and mental 
excitement had undermined the hero's constitution. 
Alas ! well might the spirit droop within him ! He had 



EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 35 

landed on the shore of the North American continent 
with high hopes, dreaming of conquest over wealthy- 
nations and magnificent cities. What had he met ? 
Interminable forests, endless lagoons, inextricable 
marshes, sharp and continual conflicts with men little 
superior, in his estimation, to the brutish creation. He 
who in Spain was cheered by beauty's glance, by the 
songs of the minstrel, when he sped to the contest with 
adversaries worthy of his prowess, with the noble and 
chivalric Moors ; he who had revelled in the halls of 
the imperial Incas of Peru, and who there had amassed 
princely wealth ; he, the flower of knightly courts, had 
been roaming like a vagrant over an immense territory, 
where he had discovered none but half-naked savages, 
dwelling in miserable huts, ignobly repulsive when 
compared with Castilla's stately domes, with Granada's 
fantastic palaces, and with Peru's imperial dwellings, 
massive with gold ! His wealth was gone, two-thirds 
of his brave companions were dead. What account 
of them would he render to their noble families ! He, 
the bankrupt in fame and in fortune, how would he 
withstand the gibes of envy ! Thought, that scourge 
of life, that inward consumer of man, racks his brain, 
his heart is seared with deep anguish ; a slow fever 
wastes his powerful frame, and he sinks at last on the 
couch of sickness, never to rise again. The Spaniards 
cluster round him, and alternately look with despair 



36 DEATH OF DE SOTO. 

at their dying chieftain, and at the ominous hue of the 
bloody river, known at this day under the name of the 
Red River. But not he the man to allow the wild havoc 
within the soul to betray itself in the outward mien ; 
not he, in common with the vulgar herd, the man to 
utter one word of wail ! With smiling lips and serene 
brow he cheers his companions and summons them, 
one by one, to swear allegiance in his hands to Muscoso 
de Alvarado, whom he designates as his successor. 
" Union and perseverance, my friends," he says ; " so 
long as the breath of life animates your bodies, do not 
falter in the enterprise you have undertaken. Spain 
expects a richer harvest of glory and more ample do- 
mains from her children." These were his last words, 
and then he dies. Blest be the soul of the noble knight 
and of the true Christian ! Rest his mortal remains 
in peace within that oaken trunk scooped by his com- 
panions, and by them sunk many fathoms deep in the 
bed of the Mississippi ! 

The Spaniards, at first, had tried to conceal the 
death of Soto from the Indians, because they felt that 
there was protection in the belief of his existence. 
What mockery it was to their grief, to simulate joy on 
the very tomb of their beloved chief, whom they had 
buried in their camp before seeking for him a safer 
place of repose ! But when, the slaves of hard neces- 
sity, they were, with heavy hearts but smiling faces, 



PERILS OF HIS FOLLOWERS. 37 

coursing in tournament over the burial-ground, and 
profaning the consecrated spot, the more effectually to 
mislead the conjectures of the Indians, they saw that 
their subterfuge was vain, and that the red men, with 
significant glances, were pointing to each other the 
precise spot where the great white warrior slept. How 
dolorously does Garcillasso describe the exhumation 
and the plunging of the body into the turbid stream of 
the Great Father of Rivers ! 

Then comes an Odyssey of woes. The attempt of 
the Spaniards to go by land to Mexico ; their wander- 
ing as far as the Rio Grande and the mountainous 
region which lies between Mexico and Texas, and 
which was destined, in after years, to be so famous in 
American history ; their return to the mouth of Red 
River ; their building of vessels capable of navigating 
at sea ; the tender compassion and affectionate assist- 
ance of the good Cazique Anilco ; the league of the 
other Indian princes, far and wide, under the auspices 
of the great king, Quigualtanqui, the Agamemnon of 
the confederacy ; the discovery of the plot ; the retreat 
of all the Indian chiefs save the indomitable Quigual- 
tanqui ; the fleet of one thousand canoes, mounted by 
twenty thousand men, with which he pursued the 
weary and despairing Spaniards for seventeen long 
days, assailing them with incessant fury ; the giving 
up of the chase only when the sea was nearly in sight ; 



38 THEIR FLIGHT FROM THE COUNTRY. 

the fierce parting words of the Indians to the Spaniards : 
" Tell your countrymen that you have been pursued by 
Quigualtanqui alone ; if he had been better assisted by 
his peers, none of you would have survived to tell the 
tale ;" the solemn rites with which, in their thousand 
canoes riveted on the water, they, on the day they 
ceased their pursuit, adored the rising sun and saluted 
him with their thanksgivings for the expulsion of the 
invaders ; the hair-breadth escapes of the three hundred 
Spaniards who alone out of the bright host of their 
former companions, had succeeded in fleeing from the 
hostile shore of Louisiana ; their toils during a naviga- 
tion of ninety days to the port of Panuco, where they 
at last arrived in a state of utter destitution, are all 
thrilling incidents connected with the history of Lou- 
isiana, and replete with the very essence of poetry. 

When Alvarado, the Ulysses of that expedition, 
related his adventures in the halls of Montezuma, Don 
Francisco de Mendoza, the son of the viceroy, broke 
oul; with passionate admiration of the conduct of Qui- 
gualtanqui : " A noble barbarian," exclaimed he, " an 
honest man and a true patriot." This remark, worthy 
of the high lineage and of the ancestral fame of him 
who spoke it, is a just tribute to the Louisianian chief, 
and is an apt epilogue to the recital of those romantic 
achievements, the nature of which is such, that the 
poet's pen would be more at ease with it than that of 
the historian. 



DISCOVERY OF TIIK MlrJSISSIPPI. 39 

One hundred and thirty years had passed away 
since the apparition of Soto on the soil of Louisiana, 
without any further attempt of the white race to pene- 
trate into that fair region, when on the 7th of July, 1673, 
a small band of Europeans and Canadians reached the 
Mississippi, which they had come to seek from the far 
distant city of Quebec. That band had two leaders, 
Father Marquette, a monk, and Joliet, a merchant, the 
prototypes of two great sources of power, religion and 
commerce, which, in the course of time, were destined 
to exercise such influence on the civilization of the 
western territory, traversed by the mighty river which 
they had discovered. They could not be ordinary 
men, those adventurers, who in those days under- 
took to expose themselves to the fatigues and perils of 
a journey through unknown solitudes, from the St. 
Lawrence to the Mississippi ! That humble monkish 
gown of Father Marquette concealed a hero's heart ; 
and in the merchant's breast there dwelt a soul that 
would have disgraced no belted knight. 

Whether it was owing to the peaceful garb in which 
they had presented themselves, or to some other cause, 
the Indians hardly showed any of that hostility which 
they had exhibited towards the armed invasion of 
Spain. Joliet and Father Marquette floated down the 
river without much impediment, as far as the Arkansas. 
There, having received sufficient evidence that the 



40 MAUaUETTE AND JOLIET. 

Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico, 
they retraced their way back and returned to Canada. 
But in that frail bark drifting down the current of the 
Mississippi, and in which sat the hard plodding mer- 
chant, with the deep wrinkles of thought and forecast 
on his brow, planning schemes of trade with unknow^n 
nations, and surveying with curious eye that boundless 
territory which seemed, as he went along, to stretch in 
commensurate proportion with the infiniteness of space ; 
in that frail bark, I say, where mused over his breviary 
that gray-headed monk, leaning on that long staff, sur- 
mounted with the silver cross of Christ, and computing 
the souls that he had saved and still hoped to save from 
idolatry, is there not as much poetry as in the famed 
vessel of Argos, sailing in quest of the golden fleece ? 
Were not their hearts as brave as those of the Greek 
adventurers ? were not their dangers as great ? and was 
not the object which they had in view much superior ? 
The grandeur of their enterprise was, even at that 
time, fully appreciated. On their return to Quebec, 
and on their giving information that they had discovered 
that mighty river of which the Europeans had but a 
vague knowledge conveyed to them by the Indians, and 
which, from the accounts given of its width and length, 
was considered to be one of the greatest wonders of the 
world, universal admiration was expressed ; the bells of 
the Cathedral tolled merrily for a whole day, and the 



MARaUETTE AND JOLIET. 41 

bishop, followed by his clergy and the whole popula- 
tion, sang a solemn Te Deum at the foot of the altar. 
Thus, on the first acquaintance of our European fathers 
with the great valley of the Mississippi, of which our 
present State of Louisiana is the heart, there was an 
instinct that told them it was tJier^e that the seeds of 
empire and greatness were sown. Were they not 
right in those divinations which pushed them onward 
to that favored spot through so many obstacles ? 
Greatness and empire were there, and therefore all the 
future elements of poetry. 

Joliet and Marquette were dead, and nothing yet 
•had been done to take possession of the newly discov- 
ered regions of the West ; but the impetus was given ; 
the march of civilization once begun could not retro- 
grade ; that mighty traveller, wdth religion for his 
guide, was pushed onward by the hand of God ; and 
the same spirit which had driven the crusaders to Asia, 
now turned the attention of Europe to the continent 
of America. The spell which had concealed the Mis- 
sissippi amidst hitherto impenetrable forests, and, as it 
were, an ocean of trees, was broken ; and the Indians, 
who claimed its banks as their hereditary domain, were 
now fated to witness the rapid succession of irresistible 
intruders. 

Seven years, since the expedition of Marquette and 
Joliet, had rolled by, when Robert Cavalier de La Salle, 

3* 



42 LA SALLE. 

in the month of January, 1682, feasted his eyes with 
the sight of the far-famed Mississippi. For his com- 
panions he had forty soldiers, three monks, and the 
Chevaher de Tonti. He had received the education of 
a Jesuit, and had been destined to the cloister, ancLto 
become a tutor of children in a seminary of that cele- 
brated order of which he was to become a member. 
But he had that will, and those passions, and that in- 
tellect, which cannot be forced into a contracted chan- 
nel of action. Born poor and a plebeian, he w^ished to 
be both noble and rich ; obscure, he longed to be fa- 
mous. Why not? Man shapes his own destinies 
when the fortitude of the soul corresponds with the 
vigorous organization of the mind. When the heart 
dares prompt the execution of what genius conceives, 
nothing remains but to choose the field of success. 
That choice was soon made by La Salle. America 
was then exercising magnetic attraction upon all bold 
spirits, and did not fail to have the same influence on 
his own. Obeying the impulse of his ambition, he 
crossed the Atlantic without hesitation, and landed in 
Canada in 1673. 

When on the continent of America, that fond object 
of his dreams. La Salle felt that he was in a congenial 
atmosphere with his temperament. His mind seemed 
to expand, his conceptions to become more vivid, his 
natural eloquence to be gifted with more persuasion, 



LA SALLE. 43 

and he was acknowledged at once by all who saw and 
heard him, to be a superior being. Brought into con- 
tact with Count Frontenac, who was the governor of 
Canada, he communicated to him his views and pro- 
jects for the aggrandizement of France, and suggested 
tl him the gigantic plan of connecting the St. Law- 
rence with the Mississippi by an uninterrupted chain 
of forts. " From the information which I have been 
able to collect," said he to the Count, " I think I may 
affirm that the Mississippi draws its source somewhere 
in the vicinity of the Celestial Empire, and that France 
will be not only the mistress of all the territory between 
the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, but will command 
the trade of China, flowing down the new and mighty 
channel w^iich I shall open to the Gulf of Mexico." 
Count Frontenac was seduced by the magnificence of 
the prospect sketched by the enthusiast, but not daring 
to incur the expenses which such an undertaking would 
have required, referred him to the court of France. 

To France, then, the adventurer returns with in- 
creased confidence ; for he had secured one thing, he 
had gained one point ; introduction to the noble and to 
the wealthy under the auspices of Count Frontenac. 
The spirit of Columbus was in him, and nothing abash- 
ed he would have forced his way to the foot of the 
throne and appealed to Majesty itself, with that assu- 
rance which genius imparts. But sufficient was it for 



44 LA SALLE. 

hitii to gain the good graces of one of the royal blood 
of France, the Prince de Conti. He fired the prince's 
mind with his own contagious enthusiasm, and through 
him obtained from the king not only an immense con- 
cession of land, but was clothed with all the powai's 
and privileges which he required for trading with tne 
Indians, and for carrying on his meditated plans of dis- 
covery. Nay, more, he was ennobled by letters- patent, 
and thus one of the most ardent wishes of his heart 
was gratified. At last, he was no longer a plebeian, 
and with Macbeth he could exclaim, " Now, thane of 
Cawdor, the greatest is behind." 

La Salle re-crossed the Atlantic with one worthy 
l/^^ / of being his fides Achates, and capable of understanding / 
the workings of his mind and of his heart. That man / 
was the Chevalier De Tonti, who, as an officer, had i 
served with distinction m many a war, and who after- 
w^ards became fan:ious among the Indians for the iron 
hand with which he had artificieJly supplied the one 
which he had lost. 

On the 15th of September, 1678, proud and erect 
with the consciousness of success. La Salle stood ao-ain 
in the walls of Quebec, and stimulated by the cheers 
of the whole population, he immediately entered into 
the execution of his projects. Four years after, in 
1682, he was at the mouth of the Mississippi, and in 
the name (as appears by a notarial act still extant) of 



LA SALLE. 45 

the most puissant, most high, most invincible and victo- 
rious Prince, Louis the Great, King-of France, took 
possession of all the country which he had discovered. 
How his heart must have swelled with exultation, 
when he stood at the mouth of the great river on which 
all his hopes had centred ; when he unfurled the white 
banner and erected the stately column to which he 
appended the royal escutcheon of France, amidst the 
shouts of his companions and the discharge of firearms ! 
With what devotion he must have joined in the solemn 
Te Deum sung on that memorable occasion ! 

To relate all the heart-thrilling adventures which 
occurred to La Salle during the four years which 
elapsed between the opening and the conclusion of that 
expedition, would be to go beyond the limits which are 
allotted to me. Suffice it to say, that at this day to 
overcome the one-hundredth part of the difficulties 
which he had to encounter, would immortalize a man. 
Ah ! if it be true that man is never greater than w^hen 
engaged in a generous and unyielding struggle against 
dangers and adversity, then must it be admitted that 
during those four years of trials La Salle was pre-emi- 
nently great. Was he not worthy of admiration, Vvdien 
to the camp of the Iroquois, who at first had received, 
him like friends, but had been converted into foes, he 
dared to go alone, to meet the charges brought against 
him bv the subtle Mansolia, whose words were so per- 



46 LA SALLE. 

suasive, and whose wisdom appeared so wonderful, that 
it was attributed to his holding intercourse with spirits 
of another world ? How interesting the spectacle ! 
How vividly it pictures itself to my mind ! How it 
would grace the pages of a Fennimore Cooper, or of 
one having the magic pen of a Walter Scott ! Me- 
thinks I see that areopagus of stern old Indian warriors 
listening with knit brows and compressed lips to the 
passionate accusation so skilfully urged against La 
Salle, and to the prediction that amity to the white 
race was the sure forerunner of destruction to all the 
Indian tribes. La Salle rose in his turn ;' how eloquent, 
how pathetic he was when appealing to the better feel- 
ings of the Indians, and how deserving of the verdict 
rendered in his favor ! 

But the enmity, the ambushes of Indians were not 
to him the only sources of danger. Those he could 
have stood unmoved ! But what must have been his 
feelings when he became conscious of the poison which 
had been administered to him by some of his compan- 
ions, who thought that by destroying him they would 
spare to themselves the anticipated horrors of an expe- 
dition which they no longer had the courage to prose- 
cute ! What his despair was, is attested by the name 
of " Creve Cobuv,'' which he gave to a fort he built 
a short time after — the fort of the "Broken Heart!" 
But let us turn from his miseries to the more grateful 
spectacle of his ovation. 



LA SALLE. 47 

111 1684 he returned to France, and found himself 
famous. He, the poor boy, the ignoble by birth, for 
whom paternal tenderness had dreamed nothing higher 
than the honor of being a teacher in a seminary of Je- 
suits, was presented to Louis XIY, amidst all the 
splendors of his court ! That Jupiter among the kings 
of the earth had a smile to bestow upon the humble 
subject who came to deposit at the foot of the throne 
the title-deeds of such broad domains. But that smile 
of royalty was destined to be the last smile of fortune. 
The favors which he then obtained bred nothing but 
reverses. Every thing, how^ever, wore a bright aspect, 
and the star of his destiny appeared to be culminating 
in the heavens. 

Thus a fleet, composed of four vessels, was put at 
his disposal, with all the materials necessary to establish 
a colony, and once more he left the shores of his native 
country, but this time invested with high command, 
and hoping perhaps to be the founder of an empire. 
That, indeed, was something worth having struggled 
for ! But alas ! he had struggled in vain ; the meshes 
of adverse fate were drawing close around him. Here 
is not the place to relate his misunderstandings, degen- 
erating into bitter quarrels with the proud Beaujeu, 
who had the subordinate command of the fleet, and 
who thought himself dishonored — he, the old captain 
of thirty years' standing, he, the nobleman — by being 



48 LA SALLE. 

placed under the control of the unprofessional, of the 
plebeian, of him whom he called a pedagogue, fit only 
to rule over children. The result of that conflict was, 
that La Salle found himself abandoned on the shores of 
the Bay of St. Bernard, in 1685, and was reduced to 
shift for himself, with very limited resources. Here 
follows a period of three other years of great sufferings 
and of bold and incessant wanderings through the ter- 
ritory of the present State of Texas, until, after a long 
series of adventures, he was basely murdered by his 
French companions, and revenged by his body-servant, 
an Englishman by birth. He died somewhere about 
the spot where now stands the city of Washington, 
which owes its foundation to some of that race to 
which belonged his avenger, and the star-spangled ban- 
ner now proudly waves where the first pioneer of civi- 
lization consecrated with his blood the future land of 
liberty. 

The rapid sketch which I have given shows that so 
much of La Salle's life as belongs to history, occupies 
a space of fifteen years, and is so full of incidents that 
it affords materials enough for the production of a volu- 
minous and interesting book. But I think that I may 
safely close my observations with the remark, that he 
who will write the life of that extraordinary man, how- 
ever austere his turn of mind may be, will hardly be 
able to prevent the golden hues of poetry from over- 



LA SALLE. 49 

spreading the pages which he may pen, where history 
is so much hke romance that, in many respects, it is 
hkely to be classed as such by posterity. 

Here I must close this historical sketch ; here I 
must stop, on the threshold of the edifice through which 
I should like to wander with you, in order to call your 
attention not only to the general splendor, but to the 
minute perfection of its architecture. Perhaps, at a 
future period, if your desire should keep pace with my 
inclination, I may resume the subject ; and I believe it 
will then be easy for me to complete the demonstration 
that our annals constitute a rich mine, where lies in 
profusion the purest ore of poetry, not to be found in 
broken and scattered fragments, but forming an unin- 
terrupted vein through the wdiole history of Louisiana, 
in all its varied phases, from the primitive settlement 
made at Biloxi to the present time, when she wears the 
diadem of sovereignty, and when, with her blood and 
treasure, and with a spirit of chivalry worthy of her 
Spanish and French descent, and of her Anglo-Saxon 
adoption, she w^as the first to engage in the support of 
that war which, so glorious in its beginning at Palo 
Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista, 
will undoubtedly have an equally glorious, and I think 
I may add, a poetical termination in the walls of Mex- 



SECOND LECTURE, 



SECOND LECTURE. 

Arrival of Iberville and Bienville — Settlement of a French 
Colony in Louisiana — Sauvolle, first Governor — Events and 
Characters in Louisiana, or connected with that Colony, from 
La Salle's Death, in 1687, to 1701. 

I CLOSED my last Lecture with La Salle's death, m 
1687. A few years after, in the latter part of the same 
centmy, a French ship of 42 guns, on one of those 
beautiful days which are the peculiar offspring of the 
autumnal climate of America, happened to be coasting 
the hostile shore of New England. At that time 
England and France were at war, and the bays and 
harbors of the British possessions were swarming with 
the floating battlements of the mistress of the sea. 
Nevertheless, from the careless manner in which that 
ship, which bore the white flag of France, hugged the 
coast, one would have thought that no danger was to 
be apprehended from such close proximity to captivity 
or death. Suddenly, three vessels hove in sight; it 
was not loner before their broad canvas win^s seemed 



54 Iberville's sea-fight. 

to spread wider, and their velocity to increase. To 
the most unpractised eye it would have been evident 
that they were in pursuit of an object which they longed 
to reach. Yet, they of the white flag appeared to be 
unconscious of the intention of their fellow-travellers on 
the boundless desert of the ocean. Although the French 
ship, with her long masts, towering like steeples, could 
have borne much more canvas ; although the breeze 
blew fresh, and the circumstance might have invited to 
rapidity of motion, yet not one additional inch of sail 
did she show, but she continued to move w^ith a speed, 
neither relaxed nor increased, and as if enjoying a holi- 
day excursion on Old Neptune's domains. 

High on the quarter-deck stood the captain, with 
the spy-glass in his hands, and surrounded by his offi- 
cers. After a minute survey of the unknown vessels, 
as they appeared, with outlines faint and hardly visible 
from the distance, and with the tip of their masts gra- 
dually emerging, as it were, from the waves, he had 
dropped his glass, and said to the bystanders : " Gen- 
tlemen, they are vessels of war, and British." Then 
he instinctively cast a rapid glance upward at the rig- 
ging of his ship, as if to satisfy himself that nothing had 
happened the?^e, to mar that symmetrical neatness and 
scientific arrangement which have ever been held to be 
a criterion of nautical knowledge, and therefore a proper 
source of professional pride. But the look which he 



Iberville's sea-fight. 55 

flung at the deck was long and steady. That thought- 
ful, lingering look embraced every object, animate or 
inanimate, which there ctood. Ay! that abstracted 
look and compressed lips must have conveyed meaning 
as distinct as if words had been spoken ; for they pro- 
duced instantaneous action, such action as when man 
prepares to meet man in deadly encounter. It was 
plain that between that chief and his crew there was 
that sympathetic congeniality which imparts thought 
and feeling without the use of language. It was plain 
that on all occasions when the soul was summoned 
into moral volition and stirred into the assumption of 
high and uncommon resolves, the same electric fluid, 
gushing from the heart, pervaded at once the whole of 
that human mass. But, if a change had come over the 
outward appearance of that ship's deck, none had taken 
place in her upper trimming. The wind continued to 
fill the same number of sails, and the ship, naiad-like, 
to sport herself leisurely in her favorite element. 

In the meantime, the vessels which had been des- 
cried at the farthest point of the horizon, had been 
rapidly gaining ground upon the intervening distance, 
and were dilating in size as they approached. It could 
be seen that they had separated from each other, and 
they appeared to be sweeping round the Pelican, (for 
such was the name of the French ship,) as if to cut 
her off* from retreat. Already could be plainly disco- 



bb IBERVILLE d SEA-FIGHT. 

vered St. George's cross, flaunting in the wind. The 
white cloud of canvas that hung over them seemed to 
swell with every flying minute, and the wooden struc- 
tures themselves, as they plunged madly over the fur- 
rowed plains of the Atlantic, looked not unlike Titanic 
race-horses pressing for the goal. Their very masts, 
w^ith their long flags streaming, like Gorgon's dishevel- 
led locks, seemed, as they bent under the wind, to be 
quivering with the anxiety of the chase. But, ye sons 
of Britain, why this hot haste ? Why urge ye into 
such desperate exertions the watery steeds which ye 
spur on so fiercely? They of the white flag never 
thought of flight. See ! they shorten sail as if to invite 
you to the approach. Beware ye do not repent of your 
efforts to cull the Lily of France, so temptingly float- 
ing in your sight ! If ye be falcons of pure breed, 
yonder bird, that is resting his folded pinions and sharp- 
ening his beak, is no carrion crow. Who, but an eagle, 
would have looked with such imperturbable composure 
at your rapid gyrations, betokening the thunderbolt-like 
swoop which is to descend upon his devoted head ? 

Now, forsooth, the excitement of the looker-on must 
be tenfold increased : now the four vessels are within 
gunshot, and the fearful struggle is to begin. One is a 
British ship of the line, showing a row of 52 guns, and 
her companions are frigates armed with 42 guns each. 
To court such unequal contest, must not that French 



Iberville's sea-fight. 57 

commander be the very impersonation of madness ? 
There he stands on the quarter-deck, a man apparently 
of thirty years of age, attired as if for a courtly ball, in 
the gorgeous dress of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. 
The profuse curls of his perfumed hair seem to be burst- 
ing from the large, slouched gray hat, which he wears 
on one side inclined, and decorated with a red plume, 
horizontally stuck to the broad brim, according to the 
fashion of the day. What a noble face ! If I were 
to sculpture a hero, verily, I would put such a head on 
his shoulders — nay, I would take the whole man for 
my model ! I feel that I could shout with enthusiasm, 
when I see the peculiar expression which has settled 
in that man's eye, in front of such dangers thickening 
upon him ! Ha ! what is it ? What signify that con- 
vulsive start which shook his frame, and that deathlike 
paleness which has flitted across his face ? What 
woman-like softness has suddenly crept into those eyes? 
By heaven ! a tear ! I saw it, although it passed as 
rapidly as if a whirlwind had swept it off, and although 
every feature has now resumed its former expression 
of more than human firmness. 

I understand it all ! That boy, so young, so effemi- 
nate, so delicate, but who, in an under-officer's dress, 
stands with such manly courage by one of the guns, — 
he is your brother, is he not ? Perhaps he is doomed 
to death ! and you think of his aged mother ! Well 

4 



58 IBERVILLE S SEA-FIGHT. 

may the loss of two such sons crush her at once! When 
I see such exquisite feehngs tumuhuously at work in a 
heart as soft as ever throbbed in a w^oman's breast ; 
when I see you, Iberville, resolved to sacrifice so much, 
rather tlian to fly from your country's enemies, even 
when it could be done without dishonor, stranger as 
you are to me, I wish I could stand by you on that 
deck and hug you to my bosom ! 

What awful silence on board of those ships ! Were 
it not for the roar of the waves, as they are cleft by 
•the gigantic bulks under which they groan, the chirp- 
ing of a cricket might be distinctly heard. How near 
they are to each other ! A musket shot would tell. 
Now, the crash is coming ! The tempest of fire, havoc, 
and destruction is to be let loose ! What a spectacle ! 
I would not look twice at such a scene^t is too pain- 
ful for an unconcerned spectator ! My breast heaves 
with emotion — I am struggling in vain to breathe! Ha! 
thete it goes — one simultaneous blaze ! The eruption 
of Mount Vesuvius — a strange whizzing sound— the 
hissing of ten thousand serpents, bursting from hell and 
drunk with its venom — the fall of timber, as if a host 
of sturdy axes had been at work in a forest — a thick 
overspreading smoke, concealing the demon's work 
within its dusky folds ! With the occasional clearing 
of the smoke, the French ship may be seen, as if ani- 
mated with a charmed life, gliding swiftly by her foes, 



IBERVILLE S VICTORS. 59 

and pouring in her broadsides with unabated rapidity. 
It looks hke the condensation of all the lightnings of 
heaven. Her commander, as if gifted with supernatural 
powers and with the privilege of ubiquity, seems to be 
present at the same time in every part of the ship, ani- 
mating and directing all with untiring ardor. 

That storm of human warfare has lasted about two 
hours ; but the French ship, salamander-like, seems to 
live safely in that atmosphere of fire ♦two hours ! I do 
not think I can stand this excitement longer; and yet 
every minute is adding fresh fuel to its intensity. But 
now comes the crisis. The Pelican has almost silenced 
the guns of the English 52, and is bearing dow^n upon 
her, evidently with the intention to board. But, strange! 
she veers round. Oh ! I see. God of mercy ! I feel 
faint at heart ! The 52 is sinking — slowly she settles 
in the surging sea — there — there — there — down! 
What a yell of defiance I But it is the last. What a 
rushing of the waters over the ingulfed mass ! Now 
all is over, and the yawning abyss has closed its lips — 
horrid I What remains to be seen on that bloody the- 
atre ? One of the English 42s, in a dismantled state, 
is dropping slowly at a distance under the wind, and 
the other has already struck its flag, and is lying mo- 
tionless on the ocean, a floating ruin ! 

The French ship is hardly in a better plight, and 
the last rays of the setting sun show her deck strewed 



60 BIENVTLLE WOUNDED. 

with the dead and the dying. But the glorious image 
of victory flits before the dimmed vision of the dying, 
and they expire with the smile of triumph on their lips, 
and with the exulting shout of " France fo7' ever I" 

But where is the conquerer ? Where is the gallant 
commander, whose success sounds like a fable ? My 
heart longs to see him safe, and in the enjoyment of his 
well-earned glory. Ah ! there he is, kneeling and 
crouching over the prostrate body of that stripling 
whom 1 have depicted : he addresses the most tender 
and passionate appeals to that senseless form; he covers 
with kisses that bloody head ; he weeps and sobs aloud, 
unmindful of those that look on. In faith ! I weep my- 
self, to see the agony of that noble heart : and why 
should that hero blush to moan like a mother — he who 
showed more than human courage, when the occasion 
required fortitude ? Weep on, Iberville, weep on ! 
Well may such tears be gathered by an angel's wings, 
like dew-drops worthy of heaven, and, if carried by 
supplicating mercy to the foot of the Almighty's throne, 
they may yet redeem thy brother's life ! 

Happily, that brother did not die. He was destined 
to be known in history under the name of Bienville, 
and to be the founder of one of America's proudest 
cities. To him. New Orleans owes its existence, and 
his name, in the course of centuries, will grow in the 
esteem of posterity, proportionately with the aggran- 



IBERVILLE AND BIENVILLE. 61 

dizement of the future emporium of so many countless 
millions of human beings. 

The wonderful achievement which I have related, 
is a matter of historical record, and throws a halo of 
glory and romance around those two men, who have 
since figured so conspicuously in the annals of Louisi- 
ana, and who, in the beginning of March, 1699, enter- 
ed the Mississippi, accompanied by Father Anastase, 
the former companion of La Salle, in his expedition 
down the river in 1682. 

Since the occurrence of that battle, of which I have 
given but an imperfect description, Iberville and Bien- 
ville had been through several campaigns at sea, and 
had encountered the dangers of many a fight. What 
a remarkable family ! The father, a Canadian by birth, 
had died on the field of battle, in serving his country, 
and out of eleven sons, the worthy scions of such a 
stock, five had perished in the same cause. Out of the 
six that remained, five were to consecrate themselves 
to the establishment of a colony in Louisiana. 

Before visiting the Mississippi, Iberville had left his 
fleet anchored at the Chandeleur Islands. This name 
proceeds from the circumstance of their having been 
discovered on the day when the Catholic Church cele- 
brates the feast of the presentation of Christ in the tem- 
ple, and of the purification of the Virgin. They are flat, 
sandy islands, which look as if they wish to sink back 



62 THEIR ARRIVAL AT CAT ISLAND. 

into the sea, from shame of having come into the world 
prematm-ely, and before having been shaped and Hcked 
by nature into proper objects of existence. No doubt, 
they did not prepossess the first colonists in favor of 
w^hat they were to expect. The French visited also 
Ship Island, so called from its appearing to be a safe 
roadstead for ships, but it offered to the visitors no 
greater attraction than the precedent. The next island 
they made had not a more inviting physiognomy. 
When they landed on that forbidding and ill-looking 
piece of land, they found it to be a small, squatting 
island, covered with indifferent wood, and intersected 
with lagoons. It literally swarmed with a curious kind 
of animal, which seemed to occupy the medium be- 
tween the fox and the cat. It was difficult to say 
whether it belonged to one species in preference to the 
other. But one of the French having exclaimed, '-This 
is the kingdom of cats !'' decided the question, and the 
name of Cat Island was given to the new discovery. 
Here that peculiar animal, which was subsequently to 
be known in the United States, under the popular 
name of racoon, formed a numerous and a contented 
tribe ; here they lived like philosophers, separated from 
the rest of the world, and enjoying their nuts — their 
loaves and fishes. I invite fabulists, or those who 
have a turn for fairy tales, to inquire into the origin of 
that grimalkin colony, and to endear Cat Island to the 



MOUTH OF THE MlSfcsISSlPl'I. 63 

juvenility of our State, by reciting the marvellous 
doings of which it was the theatre. 

It was fraught, however, with so little interest in 
the estimation of the French, that they hastened to 
leave it for the land they had in sight. It formed a 
bay, the shores of which they found inhabited by a 
tribe of Indians, called Biloxi, who proved as hospitable 
as their name was euphonic. 

On the 27th of February, 1699, Iberville and Bien- 
ville departed from Biloxi in. search of the Mississippi. 
When they approached its mouth, they were struck 
with the gloomy magnificence of the sight. As far as 
the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but reeds 
which rose five or six feet above the waters in which 
they bathed their roots. They waved mournfully under 
the blast of the sharp wind of the north, shivering in 
its icy grasp, as it tumbled, rolled, and gambolled on 
the pliant surface. Multitudes of birds of strange ap- 
pearance, with their elongated shapes, so lean that they 
looked like metamorphosed ghosts, clothed in plumage,, 
screamed in the air, as if they were scared at each 
other. There was something agonizing in their shrieks, 
that was in harmony with the desolation of the place. 
On every side of the vessel, monsters of the deep and 
huge alligators heaved themselves up heavily from their 
native or favorite element, and, floating lazily on the 
turbid waters, seemed to gaze at the intruders. Down 



G4 ITrf DEriClili'TIUiV. 

the river, and rumbling over its bed, there came a sort 
of low, distant thunder. Was it the voice of the hoary 
sire of rivers, raised in anger at the prospect of his 
gigantic volume of waters being suddenly absorbed by 
one mightier than he ? — In their progress, it was with 
great difficulty that the travellers could keep their bark 
free from those enormous rafts of trees wdiich the Mis- 
sissippi seemed to toss about in mad frolic. A poet 
would have thought that the great river, when depart- 
ing from the altitude of his birth-place, and as he rushed 
down to the sea through three thousand miles, had, in 
anticipation of a contest which threatened the contin- 
uation of his existence, flung his broad arms right and 
left across the continent, and uprooting all its forests, 
had hoarded them in his bed as missiles to hurl at the 
head of his mighty rival, when they should meet and 
struggle for supremacy. 

When night began to cast a darker hue on a land- 
scape on which the imagination of Dante would have 
gloated, there issued from that chaos of reeds such un- 
couth and unnatural sounds, as would have saddened 
the gayest and appalled the most intrepid. Could this 
be the far-famed Mississippi ? or was it not rather old 
Avernus ? It was hideous indeed — but hideousness 
refined into subhmity, filhng the soul with a sentiment 
of grandeur. Nothing daunted, the adventurers kept 
steadily on their course : they knew that, through those 



TUNTJ. 65 

dismal portals, they were to arrive at the most magni- 
ficent country in the world ; they knew that awful 
screen concealed loveliness itself. It was a coquettish 
freak of nature, when dealing with European curiosity, 
as it came eagerly bounding on the Atlantic wave, to 
herald it through an avenue so sombre, as to cause the 
wonders of the great valley of the Mississippi to burst 
with tenfold more force upon the bewildered gaze of 
those who, by the endurance of so many perils and 
fatigues, were to merit admittance into its Eden. 

It was a relief for the adventurers when, after hav- 
ing toiled up the river for ten days, they at last arrived 
at the village of the Bayagoulas. There they found a 
letter of Tonti to La Salle, dated in 1685. That letter, 
or rather that speaking bark, as the Indians called it, 
had been preserved with great reverence. Tonti hav- 
ing been informed 'that La Salle was coming with a 
fleet from France, to settle a colony on the banks of 
the Mississippi, had not hesitated to set off from the 
Northern Lakes, with twenty Canadians and thirty 
Indians, and to come down to the Balize to meet his 
friend, who, as we know, had failed to make out the 
mouth of the Mississippi, and had been landed by Beau- 
jeu on the shores of Texas. After having waited for 
some time, and ignorant of what had happened, Tonti, 
with the same indifference to fatigues and dangers of 
an appalling nature, retraced his way back, leaving a 

4* 



66 EXPLORATIONS. 

letter to La Salle to inform him of his disappointment. 
Is there not something extremely romantic in the cha- 
racters of the men of that epoch ? Here is Tonti 
undertaking, with the most heroic unconcern, a jour- 
ney of nearly three thousand miles, through such diffi- 
culties as it is easy for us to imagine, and leaving a 
letter to La Salle, as a proof of his visit, in the same 
way that one would, in these degenerate days of effem- 
inacy, leave a card at a neighbor's house. 

The French extended their explorations up to the 
mouth of the Red River. As they proceeded through 
that virgin country, with what interest they must have 
examined every object that met their eyes, and listened 
to the traditions concerning Soto, and the more recent 
stories of the Indians on La Salle and the iron-handed 
Tonti !* A coat of mail which was presented as hav- 
ing belonged to the Spaniards, and vestiges of their 
encampment on the Red River, confirmed the French 
in the belief that there was much of truth in the reci- 
tals of the Indians. • >--i.'^ -'■'■' 

On their return from the mouth of the Red River, 
the two brothers separated when they arrived at Bayou 
Manchac. Bienville was ordered to go down the river 
to the French fleet, to give information of what they 

* He had lost one of his hand.-:, wliicli he had snpj)]icd by an 
artificial one made of iron. 



PONTCIIARTRAIN. 67 

had seen and heard. Iberville went through Bayou 
Manehac to those lakes which are now known under 
the names of Pontchartrain and Maurepas. Louisiana 
had been named from a king : was it not in keeping 
that those lakes should be called after ministers ? 

It has been said that there is something in a name. 
If it be true, why should not I tell you who were those 
from whom the names of those lakes were borrowed ? 
Is it not something even for inanimate objects to have 
historical names ? It throws round them the spell of 
romance, and sets the imagination to work. 

Louis Phelyppeaux, Count Pontchartrain, a minis^ 
ter and chancellor of France, was the grandson of a 
minister. He was a man remarkable for his talents 
and erudition. His integrity was proverbial, and his 
enlightened and inflexible administration of justice is 
found recorded in all the annals of the time. When he 
was appointed to the exalted office of Chancellor of 
France, Louis the XlVth, on administering to him the 
required oath, said, " Sir, I regret that it is not in my 
power to bestow upon you a higher office, as a proof 
of my esteem for your talents, and of my gratitude for 
your services." 

Pontchartrain patronized letters with great zeal, 
and during his long career, was the avowed friend af 
Boileau and of J. B. Rousseau, the poet. He was of a 
very diminutive size, but very well shaped, and had 



68 PONTCIIAIITKAIN. 

that lean and hungry look which Csesar did not like in 
Cassius. His face was one of the most expressive, and 
his eyes were lighted up with incessant scintillations, 
denoting the ebullitions of wit within. If his features 
promised a great deal, his mind did more than redeem 
the physical pledge. There is no question, however 
abstruse, which he did not understand as if by intui- 
tion, and his capacity for labor appeared to stretch as 
far as the limits allotted to human nature. He was 
constitutionally indefatigable in all his pursuits ; and his 
knowledge of men, which was perhaps superior to all 
his other qualifications, remarkable as they were, 
greatly helped his iron will in the successful execution 
of its coi^ceptions. But, although he knew mankind 
thoroughly, he did not assume the garb of misanthropy. 
On the contrary, his manners spoke of a heart over- 
flowing with the milk of human benevolence ; and his 
conversation, which was alternately replete with deep 
learning, or sparkling with vivacity and repartee, was 
eagerly sought after. If, on matters of mere business, 
he astonished, by the clearness of his judgment and his 
rapidity of conception, those he had to deal with, he no 
less delighted those with whom he associated in his 
lighter hours, by his mild cheerfulness and by his collo- 
quial powers, even on the veriest trifles. No man 
knew better than he, how to temper the high dignity of 
his station by the utmost suavity and simplicity of 



rONTCHARTRAlN MAUllEI'Ari. 69 

address. Yet in that man who, conscious of the misery- 
he might inflict, was so guarded in his expressions that 
he never was betrayed into an unkind one — in that 
man, in whom so much blandness was alhed to so much 
majesty of deportment — there was something more 
dreaded far than the keenest powers of sarcasm in 
others. It was a smile, pecuhar to himself, which made 
people inquire with anxiety, not what Pontchartrain 
had said, but how Pontchartrain had smiled. That 
smile of his blasted like lightning what it was aimed at ; 
it operated as a sentence of death, and did such execu- 
tion that the Pontchartrain smile became, at the court 
of Louis the Fourteenth, as famous as the Mortemart 
wit* In 1714, resisting the entreaties of the king, he 
resigned his chancellorship, and retiring into the house 
of a religious congregation (Les pretres de 1' Oratoire) 
he devoted the remainder of his life to prayer, reading, 
and meditation. 

Jean Frederic Phelyppeaux, Count Maurepas, was 
the son of Jerome Phelyppeaux, a minister and secre- 
tary of state, and the grandson of Pontchartrain, the 
chancellor. At the age of fourteen, he was appointed 
secretary of state, and in 1725, in his twenty-fourth 
year, became minister. This remarkable family thus 

* The hereditary wit of all the members of that family, male or 
female, was marked with such peculiar pungency, that it became 
proverbial, and was called the Mortemart wit. 



70 MAUREPAS. 

presented an uninterrupted succession of ministers for 
one hundred and seventy-one years. The obstinacy 
with which prosperity clung to her favorites appeared 
so strange that it worked upon the imagination of the 
superstitious, or of the ignorant, and was attributed at 
the time to some unholy compact and to the protec- 
tion of supernatural beings. Cradled in the lap of 
power, Maurepas exhibited in his long career all the 
defects which are usually observed to grow with the 
growth of every spoiled child of fortune. He was as 
capricious as the wind, and as light as the feather with 
which it delights to gambol. The frivolity of his 
character was such that it could not be modified even 
by extreme old age. Superficial in every thing, he was 
incapable of giving any serious attention to such mat- 
ters as would, from their very nature, command the 
deep consideration of most men. Perhaps he relied 
too much on his prodigious facility of perception, and 
on a mind so gifted, that it could, in an instant, un- 
ravel the knots of the most complicated affair. In the 
king's council, his profound knowledge of men and of 
the court, a sort of hereditary ministerial training to 
business, imperfect as it was, enabled him to conceal 
to a certain degree his lamentable deficiency of study 
and of meditation. As it were by instinct, if not by 
the diviner's rod, he could stamp on the ground and 
point out where the fruits of the earth lay concealed ; 



MAUREPAS. 71 

but instead of using the spade and mattock in search 
of the treasure, he would run after the first butterfly 
that caught his eye. To reconcile men to his imper- 
fections, nature had given him a bewitching sweetness 
of temper, which was never found wanting. Urbane, 
supple, and insinuating in his manners, he was as pliant 
as a reed : fertile in courtly stratagems, expert in lay- 
ing out traps, pitfalls, and ambuscades for his enemies, 
he was equally skilful in the art of attack and defence, 
and no Proteus could assume more varied shapes to 
elude the grasp of his adversaries. There was no 
wall to which he could be driven, where he could not 
find an aperture through which to make his escape. 
No hunted deer ever surpassed him in throwing out 
the intricate windings of his flight, to mislead his 
sagacious pursuers. Where he unexpectedly found 
himself stared in the face by some affair, the serious 
complexion of which he did not like, he would exor- 
cise the apparition away by a profuse sprinkling of 
witty jests, calculated to lessen the importance of the 
hated object, or to divert from it the attention of per- 
sons interested in its examination. No Ulysses could 
be more replete than he with expedients to extricate 
himself out of all difficulties ; but the moment he was 
out of danger, he would throw himself down, panting 
with his recent efforts, and think of nothing else than 
to luxuriate on the couch of repose, or to amuse him- 
self with trifles. 



72 MAUllEFAS. 

Maurepas, in more than one respect, was made up 
of contrarieties, a living antithesis in flesh and blood, 
a strange compound of activity and indolence that 
puzzled the world. Upon the whole, he was generally 
thought to be, by superficial observers, a harmless, 
good natured, easy sort of man. But withal, in spite 
of his habitual supineness, he could rival the lynx, 
when he applied the keenness of his eye to detect the 
weak, ridiculous, or contemptible parts in the forma- 
tion of his fellow-beings : and no spider could weave 
such an imperceptible but certain web around those 
court flies he wanted to destroy, or to use to his own 
purposes. He was born a trifler, but one of a redoubt- 
able nature, and from his temperament as well as from 
his vicious education, there was nothing so respected, 
so august, or even so awful, as not to be laughed or 
scofled at by him. There was no merit, no virtue, no 
generous, no moral or religious belief or faith in any 
thing, that he would not deride, and he would sneer 
even at himself, or at his own family, with the same 
relish, when the mood came upon him. Yet, worthless 
as that man was in his private and public character, 
he had such a peculiar turn for throwing the rich glow 
of health around what w^as most rotten in the state ; 
he could present to his master and to his colleagues, 
the dryest matter under such an enlivening aspect, 
when they met in the council-chamber ; he could ren- 



MAIJKEPAS. 73 

der apparently so simple what seemed so complicated 
as to require the most arduous labor ; and he could 
solve the most difficult political problem with such 
ease, that it looked like magic, and made him the most 
fascinating of ministers. 

For such a king as Louis the XVth, who felt with 
great sensitiveness any thing that disturbed the volup- 
tuous tranquillity which was the sole object of his life, 
Maurepas, as a minister, had a most precious quality. 
Born in the atmosphere of the court, he was intimately 
acquainted with his native element, and excelled in 
hushing that low buzzing of discontent, so disagreeable 
to a monarch, which arises from the unsatisfied ambi- 
tion, the jealousy, and the quarrels of his immediate 
attendants. None knew better than Maurepas the 
usages and secrets of the court, and how to reconcile 
the conflicting interests of those great families that 
gravitate round the throne. He knew exactly what 
was due to every one, either for personal merit or for 
ancestral distinction. His was the art to nip in the 
bud all factions or cabals, to stifle the grumblings of 
discontent, or to lull the murmurs of oflended pride. 
He knew how to make the grant of a favor doubly 
precious by the manner in which it was offered ; and 
the bitterness of refusal was either sweetened by assu- 
rances of regret and of personal devotion, or by a happy 
mixture of reasoning and pleasantry, which, if it did 



74 MAUREPAS. 

hot convince the mind, forced disappointment itself to 
smile at its own bad luck. 

With all his faults, such a minister had too much 
innate talent not to do some good, in spite of his frivo- 
lity. Thus, he made great improvements and embel- 
lishments in the city of Paris ; he infused new life into 
the marine department, corrected many abuses, visited 
all the harbors and arsenals, sent officers to survey all 
the coasts of France, had new maps made, established 
nautical schools, and ordered the expeditions of learned 
men to several parts of the world. Geometers and 
astronomers, according to his instructions, went to the 
equator and near the boreal pole, to measure, at the 
same time and by a concurrent operation, two degrees 
of the meridian^ Thus, La Condamine, Bouguer, Go- 
din, Maupertuis, Clairant, and Lemonnier, were indebt- 
ed to him for their celebrity. Also, in obedience to 
his commands, Sevin and Fourmont visited Greece and 
several provinces of the East; others surveyed Meso- 
potamia and Persia, and Jussieu departed to study the 
botany of Peru. 

That frivolous minister did, through his strong natu- 
ral sagacity, partially discover that commerce ought to 
be unshackled, and withdrew from the India Company 
the monopoly of the coffee trade and of the slave trade. 
By such a wise measure, he largely contributed to the 
prosperity of the French colonies. But, in such an 



* MAUREPAS. 75 

elevated region of thought, conception, and action, 
Maurepas was too boyish to remain long. He would 
confide the labors of his office to those whom it was 
his duty to guide, and would steal away to the balls of 
the opera, or to every sort of dissipation. If he re- 
mained in the cabinet destined to his official occupa- 
tions, it was not to think and to act in a manner wor- 
thy of the minister, but to write lampoons, scurrilous 
drolleries, and facetious obscenities. He took a share 
in the composition of several licentious pieces, well 
suited to the taste and morals of the time, and contri- 
buted to one which attracted some attention, under the 
title of The Ballet of the Turkeys. These things were 
not, for him, the result of a momentary debauch of the 
mind, but mattei*s of serious occupation and pursuit. 
Such a relish did he find in this pastime, which would 
be called childish if it had not been tainted with immo- 
rality, that it took the mastery over his prudence, and 
he had the indiscretion to write a lampoon on the 
physical charms of the Marquise de Pompadour, the 
acknowledged favorite of Louis the XVth. The pru- 
riency of his wit cost him his place, and in 1749, after 
having been a minister twenty-four years, he was ex- 
iled to the city of Bourges, and afterwards permitted to 
reside at his Chateau de Fontchartrain, near Paris: 
There, his princely fortune allowed him to live in splen- 
dor, and to attach a sort of mimic court to his person. 



70 MAUREPAri. 

He appeared to bear his fall with philosophical indiffer- 
ence, observing that, on the first day of his dismissal, 
he felt sore ; hut that on the next, he was entirely con- 
soled. 

On the death of Louis the XVth, his successor sent 
for Maurepas, to put him at the helm of that royal ship, 
destined soon to be dashed to pieces in that tremen- 
dous storm which might be seen gathering from the 
four quarters of the horizon. The unfortunate Louis 
could not have made a poorer choice. Maurepas had 
sagacity enough to discover the coming events, but he 
was not the man, even if the power had been in his 
hands, to prepare for the struggle with those gigantic 
evils, whose shadow he could see already darkening 
the face of his country. Such an attempt would have 
interfered with his delightful suppers and disturbed his 
sleep ; and to the Cassandras of that epoch, the egotis- 
tical old man used to reply with a sneer and a shrug of 
his shoulders, " The present organization of things will 
last as long as I shall, and why should I look beyond !" 
This observation was in keeping with the whole tenor 
of his life ; and, true to the system which he had adopt- 
ed, if he lived and died in peace, what did he care 
for the rest ? He had no children, and when he mar- 
ried in all the vigor of youth, those who knew him 
intimately, predicted that the bridal bed would remain 
barren. The prediction proved true, and had not 



MAUREPAS. 77 

required any extraordinary powers of divination. Is 
it astonishing that the hneal descendant of a succession 
of ministers should be without virihty of mind, soul, or 
body? What herculean strength, what angel purity 
would have resisted the deleterious influence of such 
an atmosphere, working, for nearly two centuries, slow 
but sure mischief, from generation to generation ? 

After having been a minister for six years under 
Louis the XVIth, Maurepas died in 1781. So infatu- 
ated was the king with his octogenarian minister, that 
he had insisted upon his occupying, at the Palace of 
Versailles, an apartment above his own royal chamber ; 
and every morning, the first thing that the king did, 
was to pay a visit to the minister. Pleasant those visits 
were, because the old wily minister presented every 
thing to his young master under the most glowing colors, 
and made him believe that his almost centenarian expe- 
rience would smooth the rugged path that extended 
before him. If parliaments rebelled, if fleets were de- 
feated, if provinces were famished, Maurepas had no 
unpalatable truths to say. Only once, the eaves-drop- 
pers heard his voice raised above its usual soft tone. 
What frightful convulsion of nature could have pro- 
duced such a change ? None but the death of a cat ! 
Distracted with the shrieks of his wife, whose trouble- 
some fourfooted favorite, interfering with the king 
when engaged in his darling occupation of a blacksmith 



78 LAKE BORGNE. 

had been killed by an' angry blow of the royal hammer, 
he loudly expostulated with the murderer for the atro- 
eiousness of the deed. What must have been his dread 
of his wife, when under the cabalistic influence of her 
frowns, such a courtier could so completely drop the 
prudential policy of his whole life, as to venture to 
show displeasure to the king ! 

When Maurepas died, the king shed tears, and said 
with a faltering voice, " Alas ! in the morning, for the 
future, when I shall wake up, no longer shall I hear the 
grateful sound to which I was used — the slow pacing of 
my friend in the room above mine." Very little de- 
serving of this testimonial of friendship was he, who 
never loved any thing in this world but himself. 

So much for Pontchartrain and Maurepas, who 
have given their names to those beautiful lakes which 
are in the vicinity of New Orleans. From Lake Pont- 
chartrain, Iberville arrived at a sheet of water which 
is known in our days under the name of Lake Borgne. 
The French, thinking that it did not answer precisely 
the definition of a lake, because it was not altogether 
land-locked, or did not at least discharge its waters only 
through a small aperture, and because it looked rather 
like a part of the sea, separated from its main body 
by numerous islands, called it Lake Borgne, meaning 
something incomplete or defective, like a man with 
one eye. 



ST. LOUIS, 79 

On that lake, there is a beautiful bay, to which 
Iberville gave the patronymic name of St. Louis. Of 
a more lofty one, no place can boast under the broad 
canopy of heaven. 

Louis the IXth, son of Louis the Vlllth of France, 
and of Blatiche of Castille, was the incarnation of vir- 
tue, and, what is more extraordinary, of virtue born on 
the throne, and preserving its divine purity in spite of 
all the temptations of royal power. In vain would 
history be taxed to produce a character worthy of 
being compared with one so pure. Among heroes, he 
must certainly be acknowledged as one of the greatest ; 
among monarchs, he must be ranked as the most just ; 
and among men, as the most modest. For such per- 
fection, he was indebted to his mother, who, from his 
earliest days, used to repeat to him this solemn admo- 
nition : " My son, remember that I had rather see you 
dead thkn offending your God by the commission of a 
deadly sin." When he assumed the government of his 
kingdom, he showed that his talents for administration 
were equal to his virtues as a man. Every measure 
which he adopted during peace, had a happy tendency 
toward the moral and physical improvement of his sub- 
jects, and in war he proved that he was not deficient 
in those qualifications which constitute military genius. 
He defeated Henry the Hid of England at the battle 
of Taillebourg in Poitou, where he achieved prodi- 



80 ST. LOUIS. 

gies of valor. He gained another decisive victory at 
Saintes over the Enghsh monarch, to whom he granted 
a truce of five years, on his paying to France five thou- 
sand pounds sterhng. 

Unfortunately, the piety of the king making him 
forgetful of what was due to the temporal welfare of 
his subjects, drove him into one of those crusades, 
which the cold judgment of the statesman may blame, 
but at w^hich the imagination of the lover of romance 
will certainly not repine. In 1249, Louis landed in 
Egypt, took the city of Damietta, and advanced as far 
as Massourah. But after several victories, whereby 
he lost the greater part of his army, he was reduced to 
shut himself up in his camp, where famine and pesti- 
lence so decimated the feeble remnant of his forces, 
that he was constrained to surrender to the host of 
enemies by whom he was enveloped. He might have 
escaped, however ; but to those who advised him to 
consult his own personal safety, he gave this noble an- 
swer : " I must share in life or in death the fate of my 
companions." 

The Sultan had offered to his prisoner to set him 
free, on condition that he would give up Damietta and 
pay one hundred thousand silver marks. Louis re- 
plied, that a king of France never ransomed himself 
for money ; but that he would yield Damietta in ex- 
change for his own person, and pay one hundred thou- 



ST. LOUIS. 81 

sand silver marks in excliange for such of iiis subjects 
as were prisoners. Such was the course of negotiation 
between the two sovereigns, when it v/as suddenly 
arrested by the murder of the Sultan, who fell a victim 
to the unruly passions of his janissaries. They had 
rebelled against their master, for having attempted to 
subject them to a state of discipline, irksome to their 
liabits and humiliating to their lawless pride. Some of 
those ruffians penetrated into the prison of Louis, and 
one of them, presenting him with the gory head of the 
Sultan, asked the French monarch what reward he 
would grant him for the destruction of his enemy. A 
haughty look of contempt was the only answer vouch- 
safed by Louis. Enraged at this manifestation of dis- 
pleasure, the assassin lifted up his dagger, and aiming it 
at the king's breast, exclaimed, " Dub me a knight, or 
die !" Louis repUed, with indignation, " Repent, and 
turn Christian, or fly hence, base infidel !" When utter- 
ing these words, Louis had risen from his seat, and with 
an arm loaded with chains, had pointed to the door, 
waving the barbarian away with as much majesty of 
command as if he had been seated on his throne in his 
royal palace of the Louvre. Abashed at the rebuke, 
and overawed by the Olympian expression of the mon- 
arch's face, the Saracen skulked away, and said to his 
companions, wdien he returned to them, " I have just 
seen the proudest Christian that has yet come to the 
East !" 5 



82 ST. LOUIS. 

After many obstacles, a treaty of peace was at last 
concluded : Louis and his companions were liberated ; 
the Saracens received from the French eight hundred 
thousand marks of silver, and recovered the city of 
Damietta. But they authorized Louis to take posses- 
sion of all the places in Palestine which had been 
wrested from the Christians, and to fortify them as he 
pleased. 

When the king landed in France, the joy of his 
subjects was such, that they appeared to be seized with 
the wildest delirium. On his way from the sea-coast 
to Paris, he was met by throngs of men, women, and 
children, who rushed at him with the most frantic 
shrieks, and kissed his feet and the hem of his garments, 
as if he had been an angel dropped from heaven to give 
them the assurance of eternal felicity. Those testimo- 
nials of gratitude, extreme as they may appear, were 
not more than he deserved. He, who used to say to 
his proud nobles, " Our serfs belong to Christ, our com- 
mon master, and in a Christian kingdom it must not 
be forgotten that we are all brothers," must indeed 
have been beloved by the people ! How could it be 
otherwise, when they saw him repeatedly visiting every 
part of his dominions, to listen to the complaints of his 
meanest subjects ! They knew that he used to sit, at 
Vincennes, under a favorite oak, which has become 
celebrated from that circumstance, and there loved, 



ST. LOUIS. 83 

with august simplicity, to administer justice to high and 
low. It was there that he rendered judgment against 
his own brother, Le Comte d'Anjou ; it was there that 
he forced one of his most powerful barons, Euguerrand 
de Coucy, to bow to the majesty of the law. It was 
he whose enlightened piety knew how to check the 
unjust pretensions of his clergy, and to keep them 
within those bounds which they were so prone to over- 
leap. It was he who contented himself with retorting 
to those who railed at his pious and laborious life, " If I 
gave to hunting, to gambling, to tournaments, and to 
every sort of dissipation, the moments which 1 devote 
to prayer and meditation, I should not be found fault 
with." 

Louis undertook a second Crusade ; and having 
encamped on the site of old Carthage, prepared to 
commence the siege of Tunis, to which it is almost 
contiguous. There, privations of every sort, incessant 
fatigue, and the malignant influence of the climate, 
produced an epidemical disease, which rapidly de- 
stroyed the strength of his army. His most powerful 
barons and most skilful captains died in a few days ; 
his favorite son, the Count de Nevers, expired in his 
arms ; his eldest born, the presumptive heir to the 
crown, had been attacked by the pestilence, and was 
struggling against death, in a state of doubtful con- 
valescence ; when, to increase the dismay of the 



84 ST. LOUIS. 

French, Louis himself caught the infection. Aware 
of approaching death, he ordered himself to be 
stretched on ashes ; wishing, he, the great king, to die 
with all the humility of a Christian. At the foot of 
his bed of ashes, stood a large cross, bearing the image 
of the crucified Saviour, upon wiiich he loved to 
rest his eyes, as on the pledge of his future salvation. 
Around him, the magnates of France and his own im- 
mediate attendants knelt on the ground, which they 
bathed with tears, and addressed to Heaven the most 
fervent prayers for the recovery of the precious life, 
which was threatened with sudden extinguishment. 

Out of the royal tent, grief was not less expressive. 
The silence of despair, made more solemn by occa- 
sional groans, reigned absolute over the suffering mul- 
titude, that had agglomerated on the accursed Nu- 
midian shore ; and the whole army, distracted, as it 
were, at the danger which menaced its august head, 
seemed to have been struck with palsy by the horror 
of its situation. The dying were hardly attended to, 
so much engrossed were their attendants by heavier 
cares ; and even they, the dying, were satisfied to 
perish, since they thus escaped the bitterness of their 
present fate ; and their loss elicited no expression of 
regret from their survivors, so much absorbed were 
they by the fear of a greater misfortune to them and 
to France. There appeared to be a sort of frightful 



ST. LOUJri. 85 

harmony between the surrounding objects and the 
human sufferings to which they formed an appropriate 
frame. The winds seemed to have departed for ever 
from the earth ; the atmosphere had no breath ; and 
the air ahiiost condensed itself into something pal- 
pable ; it fell like molten lead upon the lungs which it 
consumed. The motionless sea was smoothed and 
glassed into a mirror reflecting the heat of the lurid 
sun : it looked dead. Beasts of prey, hyenas, jackals, 
and wolves, attracted by the noxious efliluvia which 
issued from the camp, filled the ears with their dismal 
bowlings. From the deep blue sky, there came no 
refreshing shower, but shrieks of hungry vultures, 
glancing down at the feast prepared for them, and 
screaming with impatience at the delay. The enemy 
himself had retreated to a distance, from fear of the 
contagion, and had ceased those hostilities which used 
momentarily to relieve the minds of the French from 
the contemplation of their situation. They were re- 
duced to such a pitch of misery as to regret that no 
human foes disturbed the solitude where they were 
slowly perishing ; and their eyes were fixed in unut- 
terable woe on those broken pyramids, those mutilated 
columns, those remnants of former ages, of faded 
glories, on those eloquent ruins, which, long before the 
time when they sheltered Marius, spoke of nothing but 
past, present, and future miseries. 



86 ST. LOUIS. 

Such was the scene which awaited Louis on his 
death-bed. It w^as enough to strike despair into the 
boldest heart, but he stood it unmoved. A perpetual 
smile, such as grace only the lips of the blessed, en- 
livened his face ; he looked round not only without 
dismay, but with an evangelical serenity of soul. He 
knew well that the apparent evils which he saw, were 
a mere passing trial, inflicted for the benefit of the suf- 
ferers, and for some goodly purpose ; he knew that 
this transitory severity was the wise device of infi- 
nite and eternal benignity, and therefore, instead of 
repining, he thanked God for the chastisement which 
served only to hasten the coming reward. The vision 
of the Christian extends beyond the contracted sphere 
of the sufferings of humanity, and sees the crowning 
mercies that attend the disembodied spirits in a better 
world. 

By the manner in which Louis died, this was strik- 
ingly illustrated. Calm and collected, after having dis- 
tributed words of encouragement to all that could ap- 
proach him, he summoned his son and successor to his 
bedside, and laying his hands on his head to bless him, 
he bid him a short and an impressive farewell. " My 
son !" said he, " I die in peace with the world and with 
myself, warring only against the enemies of our holy 
faith. As a Christian, I have lived in the fear, and I 
depart in the hope of God. As a man, I have never 



ST. LOUld. 87 

wasted a thought on my own perishable body ; and in 
obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christus, 
I have always forgotten my own worldly interest to 
promote that of others. As a king, I have considered 
myself as my subjects' servant, and not my subjects 
as mine. If, as a Christian, as a man, and as a king, 
I have erred and sinned, it is unwillingly and in good 
faith, and therefore, I trust for mercy in my heavenly 
Father, and in the protection of the Holy Virgin. So 
I have lived — do thou likewise. Follow an example 
which secures to me such a sweet death amid such 
scenes of horror. Thou shalt find in my written will 
such precepts as my experience and my affection for 
thee and for my subjects have devised for thy guidance 
and for their benefit. And now, my son, farewell ! 
This Hfe, as thou knowest, is a mere state of proba- 
tion ; hence, do not repine at our short separation. 
Blessed be thou here, and in heaven, where I hope to 
meet thee in everlasting bliss. So help me God ! In 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost, Amen !" Thus saying, he devoutly 
crossed himself, looked upwards, and exclaimed : " In- 
troibo in domum tuam, adorabo ad templum sanctum 
tuum." These were his last w^ords. During his life, 
he was emphatically the Christian king : shortly after 
his death, he was canonized by the church, and be- 
came a saint. 



88 isT. LOUJri. 

In spite of these circumstances, which must have 
been hateful to A'^oltaire's turn of mind, the recollection 
of such exalted virtue extorted from that celebrated wri- 
ter an eulogy which is doubly flattering to the memory 
of him to whom the tribute is paid, if the source from 
which it came be considered. That arch scoffer, that 
systematic disbeliever in so much of what is held sacred 
by mankind, said of St. Louis, " That prince would 
have reformed Europe, if reformation had been possible 
at that time. He increased the power, prosperity, and 
civilization of France, and showed himself a type of 
human perfection. To the piety of an anchorite, he 
joined all the virtues of a king ; and he practised a 
wise system of economy, without ceasing to be liberal. 
Although a profound politician, he never deviated from 
what he thought strictly due to right and justice, and 
he is perhaps the sole sovereign to whom such com- 
mendation can be applied. Prudent and firm in the 
deliberations of the cabinet, distinguished for cool intre- 
pidity in battle, as humane as if he had been familiar 
with nothing else but misery, he carried human virtue 
as far as it can be expected to extend." 

Thus, it is seen that the Bay of St. Louis could not 
borrow a nobler name than that under which it is de- 
signated. The magnificent oaks which decorate its 
shore, did perhaps remind Iberville of the oak of Vin- 
cennes, and to that circumstance may the bay be 
indebted for its appellation. 



BAY OF BILUXI. 89 

From the Bay of St. Louis, Iberville returned to 
his fleet, where, after consultation, he determined to 
make a settlement at the Bay of Biloxi. On the east 
side, at the mouth of the bay, as it were, there is a 
gentle swelling of the shore, about four acres square, 
sloping gently to the woods in the background, and on 
the right and left of which, two deep ravines run into 
the bay. Thus, this position was fortified by nature, 
and the French skilfully availed themselves of these 
advantages. The weakest point, w^hich was on the 
side of the forest, they strengthened with more care 
than the rest, by connecting with a strong intrench- 
ment the two ravines, which ran to the bay in a paral- 
lel line to each other. The fort w^as constructed with 
four bastions, and was armed with twelve pieces of 
artillery. When standing on one of the bastions which 
faced the bay, the spectator enjoyed a beautiful pros- 
pect. On the right, the bay could be seen running into 
the land for miles, and on the left stood Deer Island, 
concealing almost entirely the broad expanse of water 
which lay beyond. It was visible only at the two ex- 
treme points of the island, which both, at that distance, 
appeared to be within a close proximity of the main 
land. No better description can be given, than to say 
that the bay looked like a funnel, to which the island 
was the lid, not fitting closely, however, but leaving 
apertures for egress and ingress. The snugness of the 

5* 



90 IBERVILLE S DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE. 

locality had tempted the French, and had induced them 
to choose it as the most favorable spot, at the time, for 
colonization. Sau voile, a brother of Iberville, was put 
in command of the fort, and Bienville, the youngest of 
the three brothers, was appointed his lieutenant. 

A few huts having been erected round the fort, the 
settlers began to clear the land, in order to bring it into 
cultivation. Iberville, having furnished them with all 
the necessary provisions, utensils, and other supplies, 
prepared to sail for France. How deeply affecting 
must have been the parting scene ! How many casual- 
ties might prevent those who remained in this unknown 
region from ever seeing again those who, through the 
perils of such a long voyage, had to- return to their 
home ! What crowding emotions must have filled up 
the breast of Sauvolle, Bienville, and their handful of 
companions, when they beheld the sails of Iberville's 
fleet fading in the distance, like transient clouds ! Well 
may it be supposed that it seemed to them as if their 
very souls had been carried away, and that they felt a 
momentary sinking of the heart, when they found them- 
selves abandoned, and necessarily left to their own 
resources, scanty as they were, on a patch of land, be- 
tween the ocean on one side, and on the other, a wil- 
derness which fancy peopled with every sort of terrors. 
The sense of their loneliness fell upon them like the 
gloom of night, darkening their hopes, and filling their 
hearts with dismal apprehensions. 



THE CULAPISSAS. 91 

But as the country had been ordered to be explor- 
ed, Sauvolle availed himself of that circumstance 
to refresh the minds of his men by the excitement of 
an expedition into the interior of the continent. He 
therefore hastened to dispatch most of them with Bien- 
ville, who, with a chief of the Bayagoulas for his guide, 
went to visit the Colapissas. They inhabited the north- 
ern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and their domains 
embraced the sites now occupied by Lewisburg, Man- 
deville, and Fontainbleau. That tribe numbered three 
hundred warriors, who, in their distant hunting excur- 
sions, had been engaged in frequent skirmishes with 
some of the British colonists in South Carolina. When 
the French landed, they were informed that, two days 
previous, the village of the Colapissas had been attacked 
by a party of two hundred Chickasaws, headed by two 
Englishmen. These were the first tidings which the 
French had of their old rivals, and which proved to be 
the harbinger of the incessant struggle, which was to 
continue for more than a century between the two 
races, and to terminate by the permanent occupation 
of Louisiana by the Anglo-Saxon. 

Bienville returned to the fort to convey this impor- 
tant information to Sauvolle. After having rested 
there for several days, he went to the Bay of Pasca- 
goulas, and ascended the river which bears that name, 
and the banks of which were tenanted by a branch of 



92 THE COLAl'lSSAri. 

the Biloxi, and by the Moelobites. Encouraged by the 
friendly reception which he met every where, he ven- 
tured farther, and paid a visit to the Mobihens, who 
entertained him with great hospitahty. Bienville found 
them much reduced from what they had been, and lis- 
tened with eagerness to the many tales of their former 
power, which had been rapidly declining since the 
crushing blow they had received from Soto. 

When Iberville had ascended the Mississippi for the 
first time, he had remarked Bayou Plaquemines and 
Bayou Chetimachas. The one he called after the fruit 
of certain trees, which appeared to have exclusive pos- 
session of its banks, and the other after the name of the 
Indians who dwelt in the vicinity. He had ordered 
them to be explored, and the indefatigable Bienville, 
on his return from Mobile, obeyed the instructions left 
to his brother, and made an accurate survey of these 
two Bayous. When he was coming dow^n the river, 
at the distance of about eighteen miles below the 
site where 'New Orleans now stands, he met an Endish 
vessel of 16 guns, under the command of Captain Bar. 
The English captain informed the French that he was 
examining the banks of the river, with the intention of 
selecting a spot for the foundation of a colony. Bien- 
ville told him that Louisiana w^as a dependency of 
Canada ; that the French had already made several 
establishments on the Mississippi ; and he appealed, in 



THE ENGLISH TURN MISSIONARIES. 93 

confirmation of his assertions, to their own presence in 
the river, in such small boats, which evidently proved 
the existence of some settlement close at hand. The 
Englishman believed Bienville, and sailed back. Where 
that occurrence took place the river makes a consider- 
able bend, and it was from the circumstance which I 
have related that the spot received the appellation of 
the English Turn — a name which it has retained to the 
present day. It was not far from that place, the atmos- 
phere of which appears to be fraught with some malig- 
nant spell hostile to the sons of Albion, that the English, 
who w^ere outwitted by Bienville in 1699, met with a 
signal defeat in battle from the Americans in 1815. 
The diplomacy of Bienville and the military genius of 
Jackson proved to them equally fatal, when they aimed 
at the possession of Louisiana. 

Since the exploring expedition of La Salle down 
the Mississippi, Canadian hunters, whose habits and 
intrepidity Fenimore Cooper has so graphically de- 
scribed in the character of Leather-Stocking, used to 
extend their roving excursions to the banks of that 
river ; and those holy missionaries of the church, who, 
as the pioneers of religion, have filled the New World 
with their sufferings, and whose incredible deeds in the 
service of God afford so many materials for the most 
interesting of books, had come in advance of the pick- 
axe of the settler, and had domiciliated themselves 



94 FATHER MONTIGNY. 

among the tribes who lived near the waters of the 
Mississippi. One of them, Father Montigny, was re- 
siding with the Tensas, within the territory of the pre- 
sent parish of Tensas, in the State of Louisiana, and 
another. Father Davion, was the pastor of the Yazoos, 
in the present State of Mississippi. 

Father Montigny was a descendant from Galon de 
Montigny, who had the honor of bearing the banner of 
France at the battle of Bouvines. It is well known 
that in 1214 a league of most of the European princes, 
the most powerful of whom were the King of England 
and the Emperor of Germany, was formed against 
Philip Augustus. The allied army, composed of one 
hundred thousand men, and the French army muster- 
ing half that number, met at Bouvines, between Lille 
and Tournay. Before the battle, Philip reviewed his 
troops, and in their presence, removing his crown from 
his temples, said to the assembled host, " Peers, barons, 
knights, soldiers, and all ye that listen to me, if you 
know one more worthy of the crown of France than I 
am, you may award it to him." Shouts of enthusiasm 
declared that he was the worthiest. " Well, then," 
said he, "help me to keep it." The battle soon began, 
and raged for some time with alternate success for the 
belligerents. To the long gilded pole which supported 
the banner of France, and towered in proud majesty 
over the plain, the eyes of the French knights, scattered 



FATHER MONTIGNY. 95 

over the wide field of battle, were frequently turned 
with feverish anxiety, So long as it stood erect, and 
as firmly fixed in Montigny's iron grasp as if it had 
taken root in the soil, they knew that the king was 
safe, it being the duty of the bearer of that standard to 
keep close to the royal person, and never to lose sight 
of him. It was an arduous and a perilous duty, which 
devolved on none but one well tried among the bravest ; 
and it was not long before Montigny had to plunge into 
the thickest of the fight," to retain his post near PhiHp 
Augustus, who felt on that trying occasion, when his 
crown was at stake, that the king was bound to prove 
himself the best knight of his army. 

On a sudden, a cold chill rati through the boldest 
heart in the French ranks. The long stately pole 
which bore the royal banner, was observed to wave 
distressfully, and to rock like the mast of a vessel 
tossed on a tempestuous sea. That fatal signal was 
well known — it meant that the king was in peril. 
Simultaneously, from every part of the field, every 
French knight, turning from the foe he had in front, 
dashed headlong away, and with resistless fury forced 
a passage to the spot, where the fate of France was 
held in dubious suspense. One minute more of delay, 
and all would have been lost. The king had been un- 
horsed by the lance of a German knight, trampled 
under the feet of the chargers of the combatants, and 



96 FATIiEll MONTIGNV. 

had, with difficulty, been replaced on horseback. 
Those that came at last to the rescue, found him sur- 
rounded by the corpses of one hundred and twenty 
gentlemen of the best blood of France, who had died 
in his defence. His armor was shattered to pieces, 
his battle-axe, from the blows which it had given, was 
blunted into a mere club, and his arm waxing faint, 
could hardly parry the blows which rained upon his 
head. Montigny stood alone by him, and was defend- 
ing, with a valor worthy of the occasion, the flag and 
the king of France. That occasion, indeed, was one, 
if any, to nerve the arm of a man, and to madden 
such a one as Montigny into the execution of pro- 
digies. 

To be the royal standard-bearer, to fight side by 
side with his king, to have saved him perhaps from 
captivity or death ; such were the proud destinies of 
the noble knight, Galon de Montigny. His descend- 
ant's lot in life was an humbler one in the estimation 
of the world, but perhaps a higher one in that of 
heaven. A hood, not a crested helmet, covered his 
head, and he was satisfied wdth being a soldier in the 
militia of Christ. But if, in the accomplishment of the 
duties of his holy faith, he courted dangers and even cov- 
eted tortures with heroic fortitude — if, in the cause of 
God, he used his spiritual weapons against vice, error and 
superstition, with as much zeal and bravery as others 



FATllKIi DAVlUiV. 97 

use carnal weapons in earthly causes — if, instead of a 
king's life, he saved thousands of souls from perdition 
— is he to be deemed recreant to his gentle blood, and 
is he not to be esteemed as good a knight as his great 
ancestor of historical renown? 

Father Davion had resided for some time with the 
Tunicas, where he had made himself so popular, that, 
on the death of their chief, they had elected him to fill 
his place. The priest humbly declined the honor, 
giving for his reasons, that his new duties as their 
chief would be incompatible with those of his sacred 
ministry. Yet the Tunicas, who loved and venerated 
liim as a man, were loth to abandon their old creed to 
adopt the Christian faith, and they turned a deaf ear 
to his admonitions. One day the missionary, incensed 
at their obstinate perseverance in idolatry, and wishing 
to demonstrate that their idols were too powerless to 
punish any offence aimed at them, burned their temple, 
and broke to pieces the rudely carved figures which 
were the objects of the peculiar adoration of that 
tribe. The Indians were so much attached to Father 
Davion, that they contented themselves vv'ith expelling 
him, and he retired on the territory of the Yazoos, 
who proved themselves readier proselytes, and be- 
came converts in a short time. This means, that 
they adopted some of the outward signs of Chris- 
tianity, without understanding or appreciating its 
dogmas. 



98 FATHER DAVION. 

Proud of his achievements, Father Davion had, 
with such aid as he could command, constructed and 
hung up a pulpit to the trunk of an immense oak, in 
the same manner that it is stuck to a pillar in the 
Catholic churches. Back of that tree, growing on the 
slisrht hill which commanded the river, he had raised 
a little Gothic chapel, the front part of which was di- 
vided by the robust trunk to which it was made to 
adhere, with two diminutive doors opening into the 
edifice, on either side of that vegetal tower. It was 
done in imitation of those stone towers, which stand 
like sentinels wedged to the frontispiece of the temples 
of God, on the continent ot Europe. In that chapel, 
Father Davion kept all the sacred vases, the holy- 
water, and the sacerdotal habiliments. There he used 
to retire to spend hours in meditation and in prayer. 
In that tabernacle was a small portable altar, which, 
whenever he said mass for the natives, was transported 
outside, under the oak, where they often met to the 
number of three to four hundred. What a beautiful 
subject for painting ! The majesty of the river — the 
glowing richness of the land in its virgin loveliness — 
the Gothic chapel — the pulpit which looked as if it 
had grown out of the holy oak — the hoary-headed 
priest, speaking with a sincerity of conviction, an im- 
pressiveness of manner and a radiance of countenance 
worthy of an apostle — the motley crowd of the In- 



FATHER DAVION. 99 

dians, listening attentively, some with awe, others with 
meek submission, a few with a sneering incredulity, 
which, as the evangelical man went on, seemed gradu- 
ally to vanish from their strongly marked features — in 
the background, a group of their juggling prophets, or 
conjurers, scowling with fierceness at the minister of 
truth, who was destroying their power; — would not all 
these elements, where the grandeur of the scenery 
would be combined with the acting of man and the 
development of his feelings, on an occasion of the 
most solemn nature, produce in the hands of a Salvator 
Rosa, or of a Poussin, the most striking effects ? 

Father Davion had acquired a perfect knowledge of 
the dialect of his neophytes, and spoke it with as much 
fluency as his own maternal tongue. He had both the 
physical and mental qualifications of an orator : he was 
tall and commanding in stature ; his high receding fore- 
head was well set off by his long, flowing, gray hairs, 
curling down to his shoulders ; his face was " sicklied 
over with the pale cast of thought ;" vigils and fasting 
had so emaciated his form that he seemed almost to be 
dissolved into spirituality. There was in his eyes a 
soft, blue, limpid transparency of look, which seemed to 
be a reflection from the celestial vault ; yet that eye, 
so calm, so benignant, could be lighted up with all the 
coruscations of pious wrath and indignation, wdien, in 
the pulpit, he vituperated his congregation for some act 



100 FATHER DAVION. 

of cruelty or deceit, and threatened them with eternal 
punishment. First, he would remind them, with apos- 
tolic unction, with a voice as bland as the evening 
breeze, of the many benefits which the Great Spirit had 
showered upon them, and of the many more which he 
had in store for the red men, if they adhered strictly 
to his law. When he thus spoke, the sunshine of his 
serene, intellectual countenance w^ould steal over his 
hearers, and their faces would express the wild delight 
which they felt. But, anon, when the holy father recol- 
lected the many and daily transgressions of his unruly 
children, a dark hue would, by degrees, creep over the 
radiancy of his face, as if a storm was gathering, and 
clouds after clouds were chasing each other over the 
mirror of his soul. Out of the inmost recesses of his 
heart, there arose a whirlwind which shook the holy 
man, in its struggle to rush out : then v/ould flash the 
lightning of the eye ; then the voice, so soft, so insinu- 
ating, and even so caressing, would assume tones that 
sounded like repeated peals of thunder ; and a perfect 
tempest of eloquence would he pour forth upon his dis- 
mayed auditory, who crossed themselves, crouched to 
the earth and howled piteously, demanding pardon for 
their sins. Then, the ghostly orator, relenting at the 
sight of so much contrition, would descend like Moses 
from his Mount Sinai, laying aside the angry elements 
in which he had robed himself, as if he had come to 



FATHER D AVION. 101 

preside over the last judgment ; and with the gentle- 
ness of a lamb, he would v^alk among his prostrate 
auditors, raising them from the ground, pressing them 
to his bosom, and comforting them with such sweet 
accents as a mother uses to lull her first-born to sleep. 
It was a spectacle touching in the extreme, and angeli- 
cally pure ! 

Father Davion lived to a very old age, still com- 
manding the awe and affection of his flock, by whom 
he was looked upon as a supernatural being. Had they 
not, they said, frequently seen him at night, with his 
dark, solemn gown, not walking, but gliding through 
the woods, like something spiritual ? How could one, 
so weak in frame, and using so little food, stand so 
many fatigues ? How was it, that whenever one of 
them fell sick, however distant it might be, Father Da- 
vion knew it instantly, and was sure to be there, before 
sought for ? Who had given him the information ? 
Who told him whenever they committed any secret 
sin ? None ; and yet, he knew it. Did any of his 
prophecies ever prove false ? By what means did he 
arrive at so much knowledge about every thing ? Did 
they not, one day, when he kneeled, as usual, in solitary 
prayer, under the holy oak, see, from the respectful dis- 
tance at which they stood, a ray of the sun piercing the 
thick foliage of the tree, cast its lambent flame around 
his temples, and wreath itself into a crown of glory, 



102 FATHER DAVION. 

encircling his snow-white hair ? What was it he was 
in the habit of muttering so long, when counting the 
beads of that mysterious chain that hung round his 
neck ? Was he not then telling the Great Spirit every 
wrong they had done ? So, they both loved and feared 
Father Davion. One day, they found him dead at the 
foot of the altar : he was leaning against it, with his 
head cast back, with his hands clasped, and still retain- 
ing his kneeling position. There was an expression of 
rapture in his face, as if, to his sight, the gates of para- 
dise had suddenly unfolded themselves to give him 
admittance : it was evident that his soul had exhaled 
into a prayer, the last on this earth, but terminating, 
no doubt, in a hymn of rejoicing above. 

Long after Davion's death, mothers of the Yazoo 
tribe used to carry their children to the place where he 
loved to administer the sacrament of baptism. There, 
those simple creatures, with many ceremonies of a wild 
nature, partaking of their new Christian faith and of 
their old lingering Indian superstitions, invoked and 
called down the benedictions of Father Davion upon 
themselves and their families. For many years, that 
spot was designated under the name of Davion's Bluff. 
In recent times, Fort Adams was constructed where 
Davion's chapel formerly stood, and was the cause of 
the place being more currently known under a different 
appellation. 



Iberville's return. 103 

Such were the two visitors who, in 1699, appeared 
before Sauvolle, at the fort of Biloxi, to reUeve the 
monotony of his cheerless existence, and to encourage 
hini in his colonizing enterprise. Their visit, however, 
was not of long duration, and they soon returned to 
discharge the duties of their sacred mission. 

Iberville had been gone for several months, and the 
year was drawing to a close without any tidings of 
him. A deeper gloom had settled over the Httle colony 
at Biloxi, when, on the 7th of December, some signal 
guns were heard at sea, and the grateful sound came 
booming over the waters, spreading joy in every breast. 
There was not one who w^as not almost oppressed with 
the intensity of his feelings. At last, friends were 
coming, bringing relief to the body and to the soul ! 
Every colonist hastily abandoned his occupation of the 
moment, and ran to the shore. The soldier himself, in 
the eagerness of expectation, left his post of duty, and 
rushed to the parapet which overlooked the bay. Pre- 
sently, several vessels hove in sight, bearing the w^hite 
flag of France, and, approaching as near as the shallow- 
ness of the beach permitted, folded their pinions, like 
water-fowls seeking repose on the crest of the billows. 
, It was Iberville, returning with the news that, on 
his representations, Sauvolle had been appointed by the 
king, Governor of Louisiana; Bienville Lieutenant- 
Governor, and Boisbriant commander of the fort at 



104 TONTI. 

Biloxi, with the grade of Major. Iberville, having been 
informed by Bienville of the attempt of the English to 
make a settlement on the banks of the Mississippi, and 
of the manner in which it had been foiled, resolved to 
take precautionary measures against the repetition of 
any similar attempt. Without loss of time, he departed 
with Bienville, on the l7th of January, 1700, and run- 
ning up the river, he constructed a small fort, on the 
first solid ground which he met, and which is said to 
have been at a distance of fifty-four miles from its 
mouth. 

When so engaged, the two brothers one day saw a 
canoe rapidly sweeping down the river, and approach- 
ing the spot where they stood. It was occupied by 
eight men, six of whom w^ere rowers, the seventh was 
the steersman, and the eighth, from his appearance, was 
evidently of a superior order to that of his companions, 
and the commander of the party. Well may it be ima- 
gined what greeting the stranger received, when, leap- 
ing on shore, he made himself known as the Chevalier 
de Tonti, who had again heard of the establishment of 
a colony in Louisiana, and who, for the second time, 
had come to see if there was any truth in the report. 
With what emotion did Iberville and Bienville fold in 
their arms the faithful companion and friend of La 
Salle, of whom they had heard so many wonderful 
tales from the Indians, to whom he was so well known 



NATCHEZ. 105 

under the name of " Iron Hand !" With what admi- 
ration they looked at his person, and with what increas- 
ing interest they hstened to his long recitals of what he 
had done and had seen on that broad continent, the 
threshold of which they had hardly passed ! 

After having rested three days at the fort, the inde- 
fatigable Tonti reascended the Mississippi, with Iber- 
ville and Bienville, and finally parted with them at 
Natchez. Iberville was so much pleased with that 
part of the bank of the river, where now exists the city 
of Natchez, that he marked it down as a most eligible 
spot for a town, of which he drew the plan, and which 
he called Rosalie, after the maiden name of the Count- 
ess Pontchartrain, the wife of the Chancellor. He then 
returned to the new fort he was erecting on the Mis- 
sissippi, and Bienville went to explore the country of 
the Yatasses, of the Natchitoches, and of the Ouachi- 
tas. What romance can be more agreeable to the 
imagination than to accompany Iberville and Bienville 
in their wild explorations, and to compare the state of 
the country in their time with what it is in our days ? 
When the French were at Natchez, they were 
struck with horror at an occurrence, too clearly de- 
monstrating the fierceness of disposition of that tribe, 
which was destined, in after years, to become so cele- 
brated in the history of Louisiana. One of their tem- 
ples having been set on fire by lightning, a hideous 

6 



100 NATCHEZ. 

spectacle presented itself to the Europeans. The tu- 
multuous rush of the Indians — the infernal howlino;s 
and lamentations of the men, women, and children — 
the unearthly vociferations of the priests, their fantas- 
tic dances and ceremonies around the burning edifice 
— the demoniac fury with which' mothers rushed to 
the fatal spot, and, with the piercing cries and gesticu- 
lations of maniacs, flung their new-born babes into 
the flames to pacify their irritated deity — the increas- 
ing anger of the heavens blackening with the impend- 
ing storm, the lurid flashes of the lightnings, darting 
as it were in mutual enmity from the clashing clouds 
— the low, distant growling of the coming tempest — 
the long column of smoke and fire shooting upwards 
from the funeral pyre, and looking like one of the 
gigantic torches of Pandemonium — the war of the ele- 
ments combined with the worst effects of the frenzied 
superstition of man— the suddenness and strangeness 
of the awful scene — all these circumstances produced 
such an impression upon the French, as to deprive 
them, for the moment, of the powers of volition and 
action. Rooted to the ground, they stood aghast with 
astonishment and indignation at the appalling scene. 
Was it a dream ? — a wild delirium of the mind ? But 
no — the monstrous reality of the vision was but too 
apparent ; and they threw themselves among the In- 
dians, supplicating them to cease their horrible sacri- 



DISTRESS OF THE COLONISTS. 107 

fice to their gods, and joining threats to their supplica- 
tions. Owing to that intervention, and perhaps be- 
cause a sufficient number of victims had been offered, 
the priests gave the signal of retreat, and the Indians 
slowly withdrew from the accursed spot. Such was 
the aspect under which the Natchez showed them- 
selves, for the first time, to their visitors : it was an 
ominous presage for the future. 

After these explorations, Iberville departed again for 
France, to solicit additional assistance from the govern- 
ment, and left Bienville in command of the new fort on 
the Mississippi. It was very hard for the two brothers, 
Sauvolle and Bienville, to be thus separated, when they 
stood so much in need of each other's countenance, to 
breast the difficulties that sprung up around them with 
a luxuriance which they seemed to borrow from the 
vegetation of the country. The distance between the 
Mississippi and Biloxi was not so easily overcome in 
those days as in ours, and the means which the two 
brothers had of communing together were very scanty 
and uncertain. Sauvolle and his companions had suf- 
fered much from the severity of the winter, which had 
been so great that in one of his despatches he informed 
"^is government that '^ water, when poured into tumblers 
to rinse them, froze instantaneously, and before it could 
be used.'' 

At last, the spring made its appearance, or rather 



108 DISTRESS OF THE COLONISTS. 

the season which bears that denomhiation, but which 
did not introduce itself with the genial and mild atmos- 
phere that is its characteristic in other climes. The 
month of April was so hot that the colonists could work 
only two hours in the morning and two in the evening. 
When there was no breeze, the reflection of the sun 
from the sea and from the sandy beach w^as intolerable ; 
and if they sought relief under the pine trees of the 
forest, instead of meetins; cool shades, it seemed to them 
that there came from the very lungs of the trees a hot 
breath, which sent them back hastily to the burning 
shore, in quest of air. Many of the colonists, accus- 
tomed to the climate of Canada and France, languished, 
pined, fell sick, and died. Some, as they lay panting 
under the few oaks that grew near the fort, dreamed of 
the verdant valleys, the refreshing streams, the pictu- 
resque hills, and the snow-capped mountains of their 
native land. The fond scenes upon which their ima- 
gination dwelt with rapture, would occasionally as- 
sume, to their enfeebled vision, the distinctness of real 
existence, and feverish recollection would produce on 
the horizon of the mind, such an apparition as tantalizes 
the dying traveller in the parched deserts of Arabia. 
When despair had paved the way, it was easy for dis- 
ease to follow, and to crush those that w^ere already 
prostrate in mind and in body. To increase the misery 
of those poor wretches, famine herself raised her spec- 



SAUVOLLE, FIRST GOVERNUK. 109 

tral form among them, and grasped pestilence by the 
hand to assist her in the work of desolation. Thus, 
that fiendish sisterhood reigned supreme, where, in our 
days, health, abundance, and wealth, secured by the 
improvements of civihzation, bless the land with per- 
petual smiles. 

Sauvolle, from the feebleness of his constitution, was 
more exposed than any of his companions to be affected 
by the perils of the situation ; and yet it was he upon 
whom devolved the duty of watching over the safety of 
others. But he was sadly incapacitated from the dis- 
charge of that duty by physical and moral causes. 
When an infant, he had inherited a large fortune from 
an aunt, whose godson he was. With such means at 
his future command, the boy, who gave early evidence 
of a superior intellect, became the darling hope of his 
family, and was sent to France to be qualified for the 
splendid career which parental fondness anticipated for 
him. The seeds of education were not, in that instance, 
thrown on a rebellious soil ; and when Sauvolle left the 
seat of learning where he had been trained, he carried 
away with him the admiration of his professors and of 
his schoolmates. In the high circles of society where 
his birth and fortune entitled him to appear, he produced 
no less sensation ; and well he might, for he appeared, 
to an eminent degree, capable of adorning any station 
which he might wish to occupy. Nature had been 



110 sauvolle's brilliant prospects. 

pleased to produce another Crichton, and Sauvolle soon 
became known as the American prodigy. Racine 
called him a poet ; Bossuet had declared that there 
were in him all the materials of a great orator ; and 
the haughty Villars, after a conversation of several 
hours with him, was heard to say, " Here is a Marshal 
of France in embryo." 

The frivolous admired his wonderful expertness in 
fencing, in horsemanship, and his other acquirements 
of a similar nature ; artists might have been proud of 
his talent for painting and for music ; and those friends 
that were admitted into his intimacy, w^ere struck with 
his modesty and with the high-toned morality which 
pervaded the life of one so young. The softer sex, 
yielding to the fascination of his manly graces, was 
held captive by them, and hailed his first steps on the 
world's stage with all the passionate enthusiasm of the 
female heart. But he loved and was loved by the fair- 
est daughter of one of the noblest houses of France, 
and his nuptials were soon to be celebrated with fitting 
pomp. Was not this the acme of human felicity ? If 
so, whence that paleness which sat on his brow, and 
spoke of inward pain, moral or physical ? Whence 
those sudden starts ? Why was he observed occasion- 
ally to grasp his heart with a convulsive hand ? What 
appalling disclosure could make him desert her to whom 
his faith was plighted, and could so abruptly hurry him 



SAUVOLLE S MISFORTUNES. Ill 

away from France and from that seat where so much 
happiness was treasured up for him ? That it was no 
vohmtary act on his part, and that he was merely com- 
plying with the stern decree of fate, could be plainly 
inferred from that look of despair which, from the ship 
that bore him away, he cast at the shores of France 
when receding from his sight. So must Adam have 
looked, when he saw the flaming sword of the angel of 
punishment interposed between him and Paradise. 

Sauvolle arrived in Canada at the very moment 
when Iberville and Bienville were preparing their ex- 
pedition to Lousiana, and he eagerly begged to join 
them, saying that he knew his days were numbered, 
that he had come back to die in America, and that since 
his higher aspirations were all blasted, he could yet find 
some sort of melancholy pleasure in closing his career 
in that new colony, of which his brothers were to be 
the founders, and to which they were to attach their 
names for ever. 

Poor Sauvolle ! the star of his destiny which rose up 
at the court of Louis the XlVth with such gorgeousness, 
was now setting in gloom and desolation on the bleak 
shore of Biloxi. How acute must his mental agony 
have been, when, by day and by night, the comparison 
of what he might have been with what he was, must 
have incessantly forced itself upon his mind ! Why 
had Nature qualified him to be the best of husbands 



•5> 



112 SAUVOLLE ri MISFORTUNES. 

and fathers, when forbidding him, at the same time, to 
assume the sacred character which he coveted, and to 
form those ties, without which, existence could only be 
a curse to one so exquisitely framed to nourish the 
choicest affections of our race ? Why give him all the 
elements of greatness, and preclude their development ? 
Why inspire him with the consciousness of w^orth, and 
deny him time and life for its manifestation ? Why 
had such a mind and such a soul been lodged in a de- 
fective body, soon to be dissolved ? Why a blade of 
such workmanship in such an unworthy scabbard? 
Why create a being with feelings as intense as ever 
animated one of his species, merely to bruise them in 
the bud ? Why shower upon him gifts of such value, 
when they were to be instantly resumed ? Why light 
up the luminary which was to be extinguished before 
its rays could be diffused ? Was it not a solemn mock- 
ery ? What object could it answer, except to inflict 
extreme misery ? Surely, it could only be a concep- 
tion or device of the arch-enemy of mankind ! But 
how could he be allowed thus to trifle with God's crea- 
tures ? Were they his puppets and playthings ? or, was 
it one of God's inscrutable designs ? Was it an enigma 
only to be solved hereafter ? — These were the reflec- 
tions which were coursing each other in Sauvolle's 
mind, as he, with folded arms, one day stood on the 
parapet of the fort at Biloxi, looking sorrowfully at the 



SAUVOLLE ri DEATJf. 113 

scene of desolation around him, at his diseased and 
famished companions. Overwhelmed with grief, he 
withdrew his gaze from the harrowing sight, heaved a 
deep sigh and uplifted his eyes towards heaven, with a 
look which plainly asked, if his placid resignation and 
acquiescent fortitude had not entitled him at last to re- 
pose. That look of anguish was answered : a slight 
convulsion flitted over his face, his hand grasped the 
left side of his breast, his body tottered, and Sauvolle 
was dead before he reached the ground. 

Such was the fate of the first governor of Louisiana. 
A hard fate indeed is that of defective organization ! 
An anticipated damnation it is, for the unbehever, when 
spiritual perfection is palsied and rendered inert by 
being clogged with physical imperfection, or wedded to 
diseased matter ! When genius was flashing in the 
head, when the spirit of God lived in the soul, why did 
creation defeat its own apparent purposes, in this case, 
by planting in the heart the seeds of aneurism ? It is 
a question which staggers philosophy, confounds human 
reason, and is solved only by the revelations of Chris- 
tianity. 

What a pity that Sauvolle had not the faith of a 
Davion, or of a St. Louis, whose deaths I have re- 
corded in the preceding pages ! He would have 
known that the heavier the cross we bear with Chris- 
tian resignation in this world, the greater the reward 

6* 



114 REFLECTIONS. 

is in the better one which awaits us : and that our trials 
in this, our initiatory state of terrestrial existence, are 
merely intended by the infinite goodness of the Crea- 
tor, as golden opportunities for us to show our fidelity, 
and to deserve a higher or lesser degree of happiness, 
when we shall enter into the celestial kingdom of 
spiritual and eternal life, secured to us at the price of 
sufferings alone : and what sufferings ! Those of the 
Godhead himself! He would not then have repined 
at pursuing the thorny path, trod before, for his sake, 
by the divine Victim, and with Job, he would have 
said : " Who is he .that hideth counsel without know- 
ledge ? Therefore have I uttered that I understood 
not ; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. 
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed 
be the name of the Lord !" 

I lately stood where the first establishment of the 
French was made, and I saw no vestiges of their pas- 
sage, save in the middle of the space formerly occu- 
pied by the fort, where I discovered a laying of bricks 
on a level with the ground, and covering the common 
area of a tomb. Is it the repository of Sauvolle's re- 
mains ? I had with me no pickaxe to solve the ques- 
tion, and indeed, it was more agreeable to the mood in 
which I was then, to indulge in speculations, than to 
ascertain the truth. Since the fort had been aban- 
doned, it was evident that there never had been any 



REFLECTIONd. H5 

attempt to turn the ground to some useful purpose, 
although, being cleared of trees, it must have been 
more eligible for a settlement than the adjoining 
ground which remained covered w^ith wood. Yet, on 
the right and left, beyond the two ravines already men- 
tioned, habitations are to be seen ; but a sort of tradi- 
tionary awe seems to have repelled- intrusion from the 
spot marked by such melancholy recollections. On 
the right, as you approach the place, a beautiful villa, 
occupied by an Anglo-American family, is replete with 
all the comforts and resources of modern civilization ; 
while on the left, there may be seen a rude hut, where 
still reside descendants from the first settlers, living in 
primitive ignorance and irreclaimable poverty, which 
lose, however, their offensive features, by being mixed 
up with so much of patriarchal virtues, of pristine in- 
nocence, and of arcadian felicity. Those two fami- 
lies, separated only by the site of the old fort, but be- 
tween whose social position there existed such an im- 
mense "SfstancCj-^truck me as being fit representatives 
of the past and of the present. One was the type 

-»*r'' 

of the French colony, and the other, the emblem of its 
modern transformation. 

I gazed with indescribable feelings on the spot 
where Sauvolle and his companions had suffered so 
much. Humble and abandoned as it is, it was clothed 
in my eye with a sacred character, when I remem- 



116 REFLECTIONS. 

bered that it was the cradle of so many sovereign 
states, which are but disjecta membra of the old colony 
of Louisiana. What a contrast between the French 
colony of 1700, and its imperial substitute of 1848! 
Is there in the mythological records of antiquity, or in 
the fairy tales of the Arabian Nights, any thing that 
will not sink into insignificance, when compared with 
the romance of such a history ? 



THIRD LECTURE, 



THIRD LECTURE. 

Situation of the Colony from 1701 to 1712 — The Petticoat In- 
surrection — History and Death of Iberville — Bienville, the 
second Governor of Louisiana — History of Anthony Crozat, 
the great Banker — Concession of Louisiana to him. 

Sauvolle had died on the 22d of July, 1701, and 
Louisiana had remained under the sole charge of Bien- 
ville, who, though very young, v^as fully equal to meet 
that emergency, by the maturity of his mind and by his 
other qualifications. He had hardly consigned his 
brother to the tomb, v^hen Iberville returned with two 
ships of the line and a brig, laden with troops and pro- 
visions. The first object that greeted his sight, on 
his landing, was Bienville, whose person was in deep 
mourning, and whose face wore such an expression as 
plainly told that a blow, fatal to both, had been struck 
in the absence of the head of the family. In their mute 
embraces, the two brothers felt that they understood 
each other better than if their grief had vented itself in 
words, and Iberville's first impulse was to seek Sau- 
volle's tomb. There he knelt, for hours, bathed in 



120 "iberville'j? grief. 

tears, and absorbed in fervent prayer for him whom he 
was to see no more in the garb of mortahty. This re- 
cent blow reminded him of a father's death, whom he 
had seen carried back, bleeding, from the battle-field ; 
and then his four brothers, who had met the same stern 
and honorable fate, rose to his sight with their ghastly 
wounds ; and he bethought himself of the sweet and 
melancholy face of his mother, who had sunk gradually 
into the grave, drooping like a gentle flower under the 
rough visitations of the wind of adversity. On these 
heavy recollections of the past, his heart swelled with 
tears, and he implored heaven to spare his devoted 
family, or, if any one of its members was again destined 
to an early death, to take him, Iberville, as a free offer- 
ing, in preference to the objects of his love. But there 
are men, upon whom grief operates as fire upon steel : 
it purifies the metal, and gives more elasticity to its 
spring ; it works upon the soul with that same mysteri- 
ous process by which nature transforms the dark carbun- 
cle into the shining diamond. Those men know how to 
turn from the desolation of their heart, and survey the 
world with a clearer, serener eye, to choose the sphere 
where they can best accomplish their mission on this 
earth — that mission — the fulfilment of duties whence 
good is to result to mankind, or to their country. One 
of these highly gifted beings Iberville was, and he soon 
withdrew his attention from the grave, to give it en- 



DAUPHINE ISLAND. 121 

tirely to the consolidation of the great national enter- 
prise he had undertaken — the establishment of a colony 
in Louisiana. 

According to Iberville's orders, and in conformity 
with the king's instructions, Bienville left Boisbriant, 
his cousin, with twenty men, at the old fort of Biloxi, 
and transported the principal seat of the colony to the 
western side of the river Mobile, not far from the spot 
where now stands the city of Mobile. Near the mouth 
of that river, there is an island, which the French had 
called Massacre Island, from the great quantity of hu- 
man bones which they found bleaching on its shores. 
It was evident that there some awful tragedy had been 
acted ; but tradition, when interrogated, laid her choppy 
finger upon her skinny lips, and answered not. This 
uncertainty, giving a free scope to the imagination, 
shrouded the place with a higher degree of horror, and 
with a deeper hue of fantastical gloom. It looked like 
the favorite ball-room of the witches of hell. The 
wind sighed so mournfully through the shrivelled up 
pines, whose vampire heads seemed incessantly to bow 
to some invisible and grisly visitors ; the footsteps of 
the stranger emitted such an awful and supernatural 
sound, when trampling on the skulls which strewed his 
path, that it was impossible for the coldest imagination 
not to labor under some crude and ill-defined appre- 
hensions. Verily, the weird sisters could not have 



122 DAUPHINE ISLAND. 

chosen a fitter abode. Nevertheless, the French, sup- 
ported by then' mercurial temperament, were not de- 
terred from forming an establishment on that sepulchral 
island, which, they thought, afforded some facilities for 
their transatlantic communications. They changed its 
name, however, and called it Dauphine Island. As, to 
many, this name may be without signification, it may 
not be improper to state, that the wife of the eldest born 
of the King of France, and consequently, of the pre- 
sumptive heir to the crown, was, at that time, called the 
Dauphine, and her husband the Dauphin. This was 
in compliment to the province of Dauphine, which was 
annexed to the kingdom of France, on the abdication 
of a Count of Dauphine, who ceded that principality 
to the French monarch in 1349. Hence the origin of 
the appellation given to the island. It was a high- 
sounding and courtly name for such a bleak repository 
of the dead ! 

Iberville did not tarry long in Louisiana. His home 
was the broad ocean, where he had been nursed, as it 
were ; and he might have exclaimed with truth, in the 
words of Byron : — 

— "I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a deliaht; and if the freshenino- sea 



IBERVILLE LEAVES THE COLONY. 123 

Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane." 

But, before his departure, he gave some wholesome 
advice to his government : — " It is necessary," said he, 
in one of his despatches, " to send here honest tillers of 
the earth, and not rogues and paupers, who come to 
Louisiana solely with the intention of making a fortune, 
by all sorts of means, in order to speed back to Europe. 
Such men cannot be elements of prosperity to a colony." 
He left those, of whom he was the chief protector, abun- 
dantly supplied wdth every thing, and seeing that their 
affectionate hearts were troubled with manifold mis- 
givings as to their fate, which appeared to them to be 
closely linked with his own, he promised soon to return, 
and to bring additional strength to what he justly look- 
ed upon as his creation. But it had been decreed 
otherwise. 

In 1703, war had broken out between Great Britain, 
France and Spain ; and Iberville, a distinguished officer 
of the French navy, was engaged in expeditions that 
kept him away from the colony. It did not cease, how- 
ever, to occupy his thoughts, and had become clothed, 
in his eye, with a sort of family interest. Louisiana 
was thus left, for some time, to her scanty resources ; 
but, weak as she was, she gave early proofs of that gen- 



124 THE COLONY RELIEVED BY PENSACOLA. 

erous spirit which has ever since animated her ; and, 
on the towns of Pensacola and San Augustine, then in 
possession of the Spaniards, being threatened with an 
invasion by the Enghsh of South Carolina, she sent to 
her neighbors what help she could, in men, ammunition, 
and supplies of all sorts. It was the more meritorious, 
as it was the obolum of the poor ! 

The year 1703 slowly rolled by, and gave way to 
1704. Still, nothing was heard from the parent coun- 
try. There seemed to be an impassable barrier between 
the old and the new continent. The milk which flowed 
from the motherly breast of France could no longer 
reach the parched lips of her new-born infant ; and 
famine began to pinch the colonists, who scattered 
themselves all along the coast, to live by fishing. They 
were reduced to the veriest extremity of misery, and 
despair had settled in every bosom, in spite of the en- 
couragements of Bienville, who displayed the most 
manly fortitude amidst all the trials to which he was 
subjected, when suddenly a vessel made its appearance. 
The colonists rushed to the shore with wild anxiety, 
but their exultation was greatly diminished when, on 
the nearer approach of the moving speck, they recog- 
nized the Spanish, instead of the French flag. It was 
relief, however, coming to them, and proffered by a 
friendly hand. It was a return made by the governor 
of Pensacola, for the kindness he had experienced the 



ARRIVAL OF CIIATEAUGUE. l)lb 

year previous. Thus, the debt of gratitude was paid : 
it w^as a practical lesson. Where the seeds of charity 
are cast, thei-e springs the harvest in time of need. 

Good things, like evils, do not come single, and this 
succor was but the herald of another one, still more 
effectual, in the shape of a ship from France. Iberville 
had not been able to redeem his pledge to the poor 
colonists, but he had sent his brother Chateaugue in his 
place, at the imminent risk of being captured by the 
English, who occupied, at that time, most of the ave- 
nues of the Gulf of Mexico. He was not the man to 
spare either himself, or his family, in cases of emergency, 
and his heroic soul was inured to such sacrifices. Grate- 
ful the colonists were for this act of devotedness, and 
they resumed the occupation of those tenements which 
they had abandoned in search of food. The aspect of 
things was suddenly changed ; abundance and hope re- 
appeared in the land, whose population was increased 
by the arrival of seventeen persons, who came, under 
the guidance of Chateaugue, with the intention of 
making a permanent settlement, and who, in evidence 
of their determination, had provided themselves with 
all the implements of husbandry. We, who daily see 
hundreds flocking to our shores, and who look at the 
occurrence with as much unconcern as at the passing 
cloud, can hardly conceive the excitement produced by 
the arrival of those seventeen emigrants among men 



126 ARRIVAL OF WIVES 

who, for nearly two years, had been cut off from com- 
munication with the rest of the civiHzed world. A 
denizen of the moon, dropping on this planet, would not 
be stared at and interrogated with more eager curiosity. 
This excitement had hardly subsided, when it was 
revived by the appearance of another ship, and it be- 
came intense, when the inhabitants saw a procession of 
twenty females, with veiled faces, proceeding arm in 
arm, and two by two, to the house of the governor, 
who received them in state, and provided them with 
suitable lodgings. What did it mean? Innumerable 
were the gossipings of the day, and part of the coming 
night itself was spent in endless commentaries and con- 
jectures. But the next morning, which was Sunday, 
the mystery was cleared by the officiating priest read- 
ing from the pulpit, after mass, and for the general in- 
formation, the following communication from the minis- 
ter to Bienville: "His majesty sends twenty girls to be 
married to the Canadians and to the other inhabitants of 
Mobile, in order to consolidate the colony. All these girls 
are industrious, and have received a pious and virtuous 
education. Beneficial results to the colony are expected 
from their teaching their useful attainments to the In- 
dian females. In order that none should be sent except 
those of known virtue and of unspotted reputation, his 
majesty did intrust the bishop of Quebec with the mis- 
sion of taking those girls from such establishments, as, 



FOR THE COLONISTS. 127 

from their very nature and character, would put them 
at once above all suspicions of corruption. You will 
take care to settle them in life as well as may be in 
your power, and to marry them to such men as are 
capable of providing them with a commodious home." 

This was a very considerate recommendation, and 
very kind it was, indeed, from the great Louis the XlVth, 
one of the proudest monarchs that ever lived, to de- 
scend from his Olympian seat of majestj^ to the level 
of such details, and to such minute instructions for 
ministering to the personal comforts of his remote 
Louisianian subjects. Many were the gibes and high 
was the glee on that occasion ; pointed were the jokes 
aimed at young Bienville, on his being thus transformed 
into a matrimonial agent and pater familiee. The inten- 
tions of the king, however, were faithfully executed, and 
more than one rough but honest Canadian boatman of the 
St. Lawrence and of the Mississippi, closed his adven- 
turous and erratic career, and became a domestic and 
useful member of that little commonwealth, under the 
watchful influence of the dark-eyed maid of the Loire 
or of the Seine. Infinite are the chords of the lyre 
which delights the romantic muse ; and these incidents, 
small and humble as they are, appear to me to be im- 
bued with an indescribable charm, which appeals to 
her imagination. 

Iberville had gone back to France since 1701, and 



128 ARRIVAL OF DUCOUDRAY WITH SUPPLIES. 

the year 1705 had now begun its onward course, with- 
out his having returned to the colony, according to his 
promise, so that the inhabitants had become impatient of 
further delay. They were in that state of suspense, 
when a ship of the line, commanded by Ducoudray, ar- 
rived soon after the opening of the year, but still to dis- 
appoint the anxious expectations of the colonists. No 
Iberville had come : yet there was some consolation in 
the relief which was sent — goods, provisions, ammuni- 
tions ; flesh-pots of France, rivalling, to a certainty, 
those of Egypt ; sparkling wines to cheer the cup ; 
twenty-three girls to gladden the heart ; five priests to 
minister to the wants of the soul and to bless holy al- 
liances ; two sisters of charity to attend on the sick and 
preside over the hospital of the colony, and seventy- five 
soldiers for protection against the inroads of the Indians. 
That was something to be thankful for, and to occupy 
the minds of the colonists for a length of time. But 
life is chequered with many a hue, and the antagonisti- 
cal agents of good and evil closely tread, in alternate 
succession, on the heels of each other. Thus, the short- 
lived rejoicings of the colonists soon gave way to grief 
and lamentations. A hungry epidemic did not disdain 
to prey upon the population, small as it was, and thirty- 
five persons became its victims. Thirty-five ! That 
number was enormous in those days, and the epidemic 
of 1705 became as celebrated in the medical annals of 
the country, as will be the late one of 1847. 



THE PETTICOAT INSURRECTIOIV. 129 

The history of Louisiana, in her early days, pre- 
sents a Shaksperian mixture of the terrible and of the 
ludicrous. What can be more harrowing than the 
massacre of the French settlement on the Wabash in 
1705; and in 1706, what more comical than the 
threatened insurrection of the French girls, w^ho had 
come to settle in the country, under allurements which 
proved deceptive, and who w^ere particularly indignant 
at being fed on corn ? This fact is mentioned in these 
terms in one of Bienville's dispatches : " The males in 
the colony begin, through habit, to be reconciled to 
corn, as an article of rj^urishment ; but the females, 
who are mostly Parisians, have for that kind of food 
a dogged aversion, w^hich has not yet been subdued. 
Hence, they inveigh bitterly against his grace, the 
Bishop of Quebec, who, they say, has enticed them 
away from home, under the pretext of sending them 
to enjoy the milk and honey of the land of promise." 
Enraged at having thus been deceived, they swore 
that they would force their way out of the colony, on 
the first opportunity. This was called the petticoat 
insurrection. 

There were, at that particular time, three impor- 
tant personages, who were the hinges upon which 
every thing turned in the commonwealth of Louisiana. 
These magnates were, Bienville, the governor, who 
wielded the sword, and who w^as the great executive 



130 DISSENSIONS IN THE COLONY. 

mover of all ; La Salle, the intendant commissary of 
the crown, who had the command of the purse, and 
who therefore might be called the controlling power ; 
and the Cm^ate de la Vente, who was not satisfied with 
mere spiritual influence. Unfortunately, in this Lilli- 
putian administration, the powers of the state and 
church were sadly at variance, in imitation of their 
betters in larger communities. The commissary, La 
Salle, in a letter of the 7th of December, 1706, accused 
Iberville, Bienville, and Chateaugue, the three brothers, 
of being guilty of every sort of malfeasances and dilapi- 
dations. " They are rogues," said he, " who pilfer away 
his Majesty's goods and effects." The Curate de la 
Vente, whose pretensions to temporal power Bien- 
ville had checked, backed La Salle, and undertook to 
discredit the governor's authority with the colonists, 
by boasting of his having sufficient influence at court 
to cause him to be soon dismissed from office. 

On Bienville's side stood, of course, Chateaugue, 
his brother, and Major Boisbriant, his cousin. But 
Chateaugue was a new man (novus homo) in the 
colony, and consequently, had, as yet, acquired very 
little weight. Boisbriant, although a zealous friend, 
had found means to increase the governor's vexations, 
by falling deeply in love. He had been smitten, per- 
haps, for the want of something better, with the 
charms of a lady, to whose charge had been committed 



DISSENSIONS IN THE COLONY. 131 

the twenty girls selected by the Bishop of Quebec, 
and who had been appointed, as a sort of lay abbess, 
to superintend their conduct on the way and in Louis- 
iana, until they got provided with those suitable moni- 
tors, who are called husbands. That lady had recip- 
rocated the affections of Boisbriant, and so far, the 
course of love ran smooth. But, as usual, it was 
doomed to meet with one of those obstacles which 
have given rise to so many beautiful literary composi- 
tions. Bienville stoutly objected to the match, as 
being an unfit one for his relation and subordinate, 
and peremptorily refused his approbation. Well may 
the indignation of the lady be conceived ! Boisbriant 
seems to have meekly submitted to the superior wis- 
dom of his chief, but she, scorning such forbearance, 
addressed herself to the minister, and complained, in 
no measured terms, of what she called an act of op- 
pression. After having painted her case with as strong 
colors as she could, she very naturally concluded her 
observations with this sweeping declaration concern- 
ing Bienville : " It is therefore evident that he has not 
the necessary qualifications to be governor of this 
colony." Such is the logic of Love, and although it 
may provoke a smile, thereby hangs a tale not desti- 
tute of romance. 

These intestine dissensions were not the only dif- 
ficulties that Bienville had to cope with. The very 



132 DISSENSIONS IN THE COLONY. 

existence of the colony was daily threatened hy the 
Indians ; a furious war, in which the French were fre- 
quently implicated, raged between the Chickasaws and 
the Choctaws ; and the smaller nations, principally the 
Alibamous, that prowled about the settlements of the 
colonists, committed numerous thefts and murders. It 
seemed that all the elements of disorder were at work 
to destroy the social organization which civilization 
had begun, and that the wild chaos of barbarian sway 
claimed his own again. Uneasy lay the head of Bien- 
ville in his midnight sleep, for fearfully alive was he to 
the responsibility which rested on his shoulders. In 
that disturbed state of his mind, with what anxiety 
did he not interrogate the horizon, and strain to peep 
into the vacancy of space, in the fond hope that some 
signs of his brother's return would greet his eyes ! 
But, alas ! the year 1707 had run one half of its career, 
and yet Iberville came not. To what remote parts of 
heaven had the eagle flown, not to hear and not to 
mind the shrieks of the inmates of his royal nest ? 
Not oblivious the eagle had been, but engaged in car- 
rying Jove's thunderbolts, he had steadily pursued the 
accomplishment of his task. 

Dropping the metaphorical style, it will be suffi- 
cient to state, that during the five years he had been 
absent from Louisiana, Iberville had been, with his 
usual success, nobly occupied in supporting the honor 



EARLY LIFE UF IBERVILLE. 133 

of his country's flag, and in increasing the reputation 
which he had ah'eady gained, as one of the brightest 
gems of the French navy. If the duration of a man's 
existence is to be measured by the merit of his deeds, 
then Iberville had lived long, before reaching the me- 
ridian of life, and he was old in fame, if not in years, 
when he undertook to establish a colony in Louisiana. 
From his early youth, all his days had been well spent, 
because dedicated to some useful or generous purpose. 
The soft down of adolescence had hardly shaded his 
face, when he had become the idol of his countrymen. 
The foaming brine of the ocean, the dashing waters 
of the rivers, the hills and valleys of his native country 
and of the neighboring British possessions, had wit- 
nessed his numerous exploits. Such were the confi- 
dence and love with which he had inspired the Cana- 
dians and Acadians for his person, by the irresistible 
seduction of his manners, by the nobleness of his de- 
portment, by the dauntless energy of his soul, and by 
the many qualifications of his head and heart, that 
they would, said Father Charlevoix, have followed him 
to the confines of the universe. It would be too long 
to recite his wonderful achievements, and the injuries 
which he inflicted upon the fleets of England, particu- 
larly in the Bay of Hudson, either by open force, or 
by stealth and surprise. When vessels were icebound, 
they v/ere more than once stormed by Iberville and 



134 EXPLOITS OF IBERVILLE. 

his intrepid associates. Two of his brothers, Ste. 
Helene and Mericourt, both destined to an early death, 
used to be his wilHng companions in those adventur- 
ous expeditions. At other times, when the war of 
the elements seemed to preclude any other contest, 
Iberville, in a light buoyant craft, which sported mer- 
rily on the angry waves, would scour far and wide the 
Bay of Hudson, and the adjacent sea, to prey upon the 
commerce of the great rival of France, and many were 
the prizes which he brought into port. These were 
the sports of his youth. 

The exploits of Iberville on land and at sea, ac- 
quired for him a sort of amphibious celebrity. Among 
other doings of great daring, may be mentioned the 
taking of Corlar, near Orange, in the province of New- 
York. In November, 1694, he also took, in the Bay of 
Hudson, the fort of Port Nelson, defended by forty-two 
pieces of artillery, and he gave it the name of Fort 
Bourbon. In 1696 he added to his other conquests, the 
Fort of Pemknit, in Acadia. When Chubb, the En- 
glish commander, was summoned to surrender, he re- 
turned this proud answer : " If the sea were white with 
French sails, and the land dark w4th Indians, I would 
not give up the fort, unless when reduced to the very 
last extremities." In spite of this vaunt, he w^as soon 
obliged to capitulate. The same year, Iberville pos- 
sessed himself of the Fort of St. John, in Newfound- 



ARRIVAL OF IBERVILLE AT SAN DOMINGO. 135 

land, and in a short time forced tlie rest of that province 
to yield to his arms. The French, how^ever, did not 
retain it long. But his having revived La Salle's pro- 
ject of establishing a colony in Louisiana, constitutes, 
on account of the magnitude of its results, his best claim 
to the notice of posterity. We have seen how he exe- 
cuted that important undertaking. 

After a long absence from that province, the colo- 
nization of w^hich was his favorite achievement, he was 
now preparing to return to its shores, and arrived at 
San Domingo, having under his command a consider- 
able fleet, with which he meditated to attack Charles- 
ton, in South Carolina ; from whence he cherished the 
hope of sailing for Louisiana, with all the pomp, pride, 
and circumstance of glorious victory. He had stopped 
at San Domingo, because he had been authorized to 
reinforce himself with a thousand men, whom he was 
to take out of the garrison of that island. The ships had 
been revictualled, the troops were embarked, and Iber- 
ville was ready to put to sea, when a great feast was 
tendered to him and to his officers, by the friends from 
whom he was soon to part. Loud the sound of revelry 
was still heard in hall and bower, when Iberville, whose 
thoughts dwelt on the responsibilities of the expedition 
which had been trusted to his care, withdrew from the 
assembly, where he had been the observed of all, leav- 
ing and even encouraging his subordinates to enjoy the 



136 IBERVILLE IN SAN BOMINGO. 

rest of that fairy night, which he knew was soon to be 
succeeded for them by the perils and hardships of war. 
He w^as approaching that part of the shore where his 
boat lay, wTiiting to carry him to his ship, when, as he 
trod along, in musing loneliness, his attention was 
attracted by the beauties of the tropical sky, which 
gleamed over his head. From that spangled canopy, 
so lovely that it seemed worthy of Eden, there appeared 
to descend an ambrosial atmosphere, w^hich glided 
through the inmost recesses of the body, gladdening 
the whole frame wath voluptuous sensations. 

" All was so still, so soft, in earth and air. 
You scarce would start to meet a spirit there ; 
Secure that nought of evil could delight 
To walk in such a scene, on such a night !" 

Iberville's pace slackened as he admired, and at last he 
stopped, rooted to the ground, as it were, by a sort of 
magnetic influence, exercised upon him by the fascina- 
tions of the scene. Folding his arms, and wrapt up in 
ecstasy, he gazed long and steadily at the stars which 
studded the celestial vault. 

O stars ! who has not experienced your mystical 
and mysterious power ! Who has ever gazed at ye, 
without feeling undefinable sensations, something of 
awe, and a vague consciousness that ye are connected 
with the fate of mortals ! Ye silent orbs, that move 



IBERVILLE IN riAN DOMINGO. 137 

with noiseless splendor through the infniiteness of 
space, how is it that j^our voice is so distinctly heard 
in the soul of man, if his essence and yours were not 
bound together by some electric link, as are all things, 
no doubt, in the universe ? How the eyes grow dim 
with rapturous tears, and the head dizzy with wild fan- 
cies, when holding communion v/ith you, on the mid- 
night watch ! Ye stars, that, scattered over the broad 
expanse of heaven, look to me as if ye were grains of 
golden dust, which God shook off his feet, as he walked 
in his might, on the days of creation, I love and worship 
you ! When there .was none in the world to sympa- 
thize with an aching heart, with a heart that would 
have disdained, in its lonely pride, to show its pangs to 
mortal eyes, how often have I felt relief in your pre- 
sence from the bitter recollection of past woes, and con- 
solation under the infliction of present sufferings ! How 
often have I drawn from you such inspirations as pre- 
pared me to meet, with fitting fortitude, harsher trials 
still to come ! How often have I gazed upon you, until, 
flying upon the wrings of imagination, I soared among 
your bright host, and spiritualized myself away, far 
away, from the miseries of my contemptible existence ! 
Howsoever that ephemeral worm, cynical man, may 
sneer, he is no idle dreamer, the lover of you, the star- 
gazer. The broad sheet of heaven to which ye are 
affixed, like letters of fire, is a book prepared by God 



138 WARNING TO IBERVILLE. 

for the learned and the ignorant, where man can read 
lessons to guide him through the active duties and the 
struggles of this life, and to conduct him safely to the 
portals of the eternal one which awaits mortality ! 

Thus, perhaps, Iberville felt, as he was spying the 
face of heaven. Suddenly, his reverie was interrupted 
by a slight tap on the shoulder. He started, and look- 
ing round, saw a venerable monk, whose person was 
shrouded up in a brownish gown and hood, which hardly 
left any thing visible save his sharp, aquiline nose, his 
long gray beard, and his dark lustrous eyes. " My son !" 
said he, in a deep tone, "what dost thou see above that 
thus rivets thy attention ?" " Nothing, father," replied 
Iberville, bowing reverentially, " nothing ! From the 
contemplation of these luminaries, to which my eyes 
had been attracted by their unusual radiancy, I had 
fallen insensibly, I do not know how, into dreamy spec- 
ulations, from which you have awakened me, father." 
" Poor stranger ! " continued the monk, with a voice 
shaking with emotion, " thou hast seen nothing ! But 
/ have, and will tell thee. Fly hence ! death is around 
thee — it is in the very air which thou dost breathe. 
Seest thou that deep, blue transparency of heaven, so 
transparently brilliant, that the vault which it forms, 
seems to be melting to let thy sight, as thou gazest, 
penetrate still farther and without limits, — it portends 
of death ! This soft, balmy breeze which encompasseth 



WARNING TO IBERVILLE. 139 

thee with its velvet touch, it is pleasing, but fatal as the 
meretricious embraces of a courtesan, which allure the 
young to sin, to remorse, and to death ! Above all, 
look at that sign, stamped on the stars : it is a never- 
failing one. Dost thou see how they blink and twinkle, 
like the eyes of warning angels ? They no longer ap- 
pear like fixed incrustations in the vault of heaven, 
but they seem to oscillate wdth irregular and tremulous 
vibrations. Hasten away with all speed. The pesti- 
lence is abroad ; it stalks onward, the dire queen of the 
land. It is now amidst yonder revellers, whose music 
and mundane mirth reach our ears. Incumbent on its 
hell-black pinions, the shapeless monster hovers over 
you all, selecting its victims, and crossing their fore- 
heads with its deadly finger. Mark me ! That awful 
scourge, the yellow fever, has been hatched to-night. 
Keep out of its path, if yet there be time : if not, mayst 
thou, my son, be prepared to meet thy God !" So say- 
ing, the monk made the holy sign of the cross, blessed 
with his extended index the astonished Iberville, who 
devoutly uncovered himself, and then slowly departed, 
vanishing like a bird of ill omen in the gloom of the 
night. 

It was morn. With his brother officers, Iberville 
sat at a table, covered with maps, charts and scientific 
instruments. The object of their meeting was to come 
to a definite understanding as to the plan of the intended 



140 lUEllVILLE S SlCKNEriS AND DEATH. 

campaign, and to regulate their future movements. 
Suddenl}^ Iberville, who, calm and self-collected, had 
been explaining his views, sprung up from his seat wdth 
the most intense expression of pain in his haggard fea- 
tures. It seemed to him as if all the fires and whirl- 
winds of a volcano had concentrated in his agonized 
head. His blodshot eyes revolved in their orbits with 
restless vivacity, and had that peculiar daguerreotype 
glare, so annoying to the looker-on. Yellowish streaks 
spread instantaneously over his face, as if there deposited 
by a coarse painter's brush. Sharp shooting throes 
racked his spine : cold shudderings shook his stiffened 
limbs, and his blood pulsated, as if it were bursting from 
his veins to escape from the tormoil into which it had 
been heated by some malignant spell. — At such a sight, 
the officers cried out, with one simultaneous voice, 
"Poison! poison!" "No! no!" exclaimed Iberville, 
gasping for breath, and falling on a couch, " not 
poison ! but the predicted pestilence ! fly, fly, my friends 
— ah ! the monk ! the prophetic monk ! — he spoke the 
truth ! O God ! my prayer at Sauvolle's tomb has 
been heard ! — Well ! content ! Thy will be done ! 
To mother earth I yield my body, ashes to ashes, and 
to Thee my immortal soul !" These w^ords were fol- 
lowed by the wildest delirium, and ere five hours had 
elapsed, Iberville had been gathered to his forefathers' 
bosom. Thus died this truly great and good man, in 



bienvjllk's interview with Indian chiefs. 141 

compliment to whose memory the name of Iberville 
has been given to one of our most important parishes. 

Ill was the wind that carried to Louisiana the me- 
lancholy information of Iberville's death. It blasted 
the hearts of the poor colonists, and destroyed the hope 
they had of being speedily relieved. Their situation 
had become truly deplorable : their numbers were ra- 
pidly diminishing : and the Indians were daily becom- 
ing more hostile, and more bold in their demands for 
goods and merchandise, as a tribute which they exacted 
for not breaking out into actual warfare. Bienville 
convened the chiefs of the Chickasaws and of the Choc- 
taws, in order to conciliate them by some trifling presents 
of which he could yet dispose, and to gain time by some 
fair promises as to what he would do for them under 
more favorable circumstances. With a view^ of making 
an imposing show, Bienville collected all the colonists 
that were within reach : but notwithstanding that dis- 
play, a question, propounded by one of the Indian chiefs, 
gave him a humiliating proof of the slight estimation in 
which the savages held the French nation. Much to 
his annoyance, he was asked if that part of his people 
which remained at home was as numerous as that which 
had come to settle in Louisiana. Bienville, who spoke 
their language perfectly well, attempted, by words and 
comparisons, suited to their understanding, to impart to 
them a correct notion of the extent of the population 



142 HIS CRITICAL POSITION. 

of France. But the Indians looked incredulous, and 
one of them even said to Bienville, " If your country- 
men are, as you affirm, as thick on their native soil as 
the leaves of our forests, how is it that they do not send 
more of their warriors here, to avenge the death of 
such of them as have fallen by our hands ? Not to do 
so, when having the power, would argue them to be of 
a very base spirit. And how is it that most of the tall 
and powerful men that came with you, being dead, are 
replaced only by boys, or cripples, or women, that do 
you no credit ? Surely the French would not so be- 
have, if they could do otherwise, and my white brother 
tells a story that disparages his own tribe." 

Thus Bienville found himself in a very critical situa- 
tion. He was conscious that his power was despised 
by the Indians, who knew that he had only forty-five 
soldiers at his disposal, and he felt that the red men could 
easily rise upon him and crush the colony at one blow. 
He was aware that they were restrained from doing 
the deed by their cupidity only, bridled as they were by 
their expectation of the arrival of some ship with mer- 
chandise, which, they knew from experience, would 
soon have to come to their huts to purchase peace, and 
in exchange for furs. Bienville felt so weak, so much 
at the mercy of the surrounding nations, and enter- 
tained such an apprehension of some treacherous and 
sudden attack on their part, that he thought it prudent 



INTRIGUES OF LA SALLE. 143 

to concentrate his forces, and to abandon the fort where 
he kept a small garrison on the Mississippi. 

On the other hand, the death of Iberville had en- 
couraged the hostility of Bienville's enemies. They 
kneM^ that he was no longer supported by the powerful 
influence of his brother at court, and they renewed their 
attacks with a better hope of success. The commissary 
La Salle pushed on his intrigues with more activity, 
and reduced them to a sort of systematic warfare. He 
divided the colony into those that were against and 
those that were for Bienville. All such persons as sup- 
ported the governor's administration were branded as 
felons : and those that pursued another course, who- 
ever they might be, were angels of purity. At that 
time, there was in the colony a physician, sent thither 
and salaried by the government, who was called the 
king's physician. His name was Barrot : from the cir- 
cumstance of his being the only member of his profes- 
sion in the country, and from the nature of his duties, 
he was in a position to exercise a good deal of influ- 
ence. La Salle attempted to win him over to his side, 
and having failed in his efforts, he immediately wrote to 
the minister, " that Barrot, although he had the honor 
of being the king's physician in the colony, was no bet- 
ter than a fool, a drunkard and a rogue, who sold the 
king's drugs and appropriated the money to his own 
purposes." 



144 CHARACTER OF LA SALLE. 

Authors, who have written on the structure of man, 
have said that if his features were closely examined, 
there would be found in them a strange resemblance 
with some of the animals, of the birds, or of the rep- 
tiles that people this globe. I remember having seen 
curious engravings exemplifying this assertion with the 
most wonderful effect. In a moral sense, the resem- 
blance is perhaps greater, and the whale, the lion, the 
eagle, the wolf, the lamb, and other varieties of the 
brutish creation, maj^ without much examination, be 
discovered to exist, physically and spiritually, in the hu- 
man species. Among the bipeds that are reckoned to 
belong to the ranks of humanity, none was better calcu- 
lated than La Salle to personate the toad. His mission 
was to secrete venom, as the rose exhales perfumes. Na- 
ture delights in contrarieties. Fat, short, and sleek, with 
bloated features and oily skin, he was no unfit repre- 
sentative of that reptile, although certainly to him the 
traditionary legend of a jewel in the head could not 
be applied. Puffed up in self-conceit, an eternal smile 
of contentment was stereotyped on the gross texture 
of his lips, where it was mixed with an expression of 
bestial sensuality. His cold grayish eyes had the dull 
squint of the hog, and as he strutted along, one w^as 
almost amazed not to hear an occasional grunt. This 
thing of the neuter gender, which, to gift with the fac- 
ulty of speech, seemed to be an injustice done to the 



CHARACTER OF LA SALLE, 145 

superior intellect of the baboon, did, forsooth, think 
itself an orator. Whenever this royal comnriissary 
had a chance of catching a few of the colonists 
together, for instance, on all public occasions, he would 
gradually drop the tone of conversation, and sublimate 
his colloquial address into a final harangue. Thus, the 
valves of his brazen throat being open, out ran the 
muddy water of his brain, bespattering all that stood 
within reach. Pitched on a high and monotonous key, 
his prosy voice carried to his hearers, for hours, the 
same inane, insipid flow of bombastic phrases, falling 
on the ear with the unvaried and ever-recurring sound 
of a pack-horse wheel in a flour-mill. A coiner of 
words, he could have filled with them the vaults of the 
vastest mint ; but if analyzed and reduced to their 
sterling value, they would not have produced a grain 
of sense. This man, contemptible as he was, had ac- 
tually become a public nuisance, on account of the 
impediments with which he embarrassed the adminis- 
tration of Louisiana. He was eternally meddhng 
with every thing, under the pretext of correcting 
abuses, and although he was incapable of producing 
any thing of his own, that could stand on its legs for 
a minute, he was incessantly concocting some plan, as 
ill-begotten as his own misshapen person. He was, in 
his own delirious opinion, as complete a financier, as 
skilful a statesman, as great a general, and, above all, 



116 CHARACTER OF LA SALLE. 

as profound a legislator, as ever lived ; so that this 
legislative Caliban had even gone so far as to imagine 
he could frame a code of laws for the colony ; and, 
because all his preposterous propositions v^ere resisted 
by Bienville, he had conceived for him the bitterest 
hatred. To do him justice, it must be said that he 
was in earnest, when he reproached others with mal- 
versation and every sort of malfeasances. There are 
creatures whose accusations it would be wrong to 
resent. They see themselves reflected in others, and, 
like yelping curs, pursue with their barkings the sinful 
image : it would be as idle to expect them to under- 
stand the workings of a noble heart and of a great 
mind, as it would be to imagine that a worm could 
raise itself to the conception of a planet's gravita- 
tions. 

So thought Bienville, and he passed with silent 
contempt over La Salle's manoeuvres. Was he not 
right ? He who thinks himself your adversary, but 
who, if you were to turn upon him with the flashes of 
honest indignation, with the uplifted spear of physical 
and mental power united, with the threatening aspect 
of what he does not possess and dreams not of, a soul, 
convulsed into a storm, would shrink into an atom and 
flatten himself to the level of your heels, cannot be a 
real adversary : his enmity is to be regarded as a vain 
shadow, the phantasm of impotent envy. This is no 



DISMISSAL OF BIENVILLE FROM OFFICE. 147 

doubt the most dignified course to be pursued, but per- 
haps not the most prudent ; and Bienville soon dis- 
covered that, howsoever it may be in theory, there is, 
in practice, no attack so pitiful as not to require some 
sort of precautionary defence. Thus on the 13th of 
July, 1707, the minister dismissed Bienville from office, 
appointed De Muys in his place, and instructed this 
new governor to examine into the administration of 
his predecessor, and into the accusations brought 
against him, with the authorization of sending him 
prisoner to France, if they were well founded. A 
poor chance it was for Bienville, to be judged by the 
man that pushed him from his stool, and whose con- 
tinuance in office would probably depend upon the 
guilt of the accused ! This was but a sorry return for 
the services of Bienville and for those of his distin- 
guished family. But thus goes the world ! 

La Salle had no cause to triumph over the downfall 
of Bienville, for he himself was, at the same time, 
dismissed from office, and was succeeded by Diron 
d'Artaguelle. Nay, he had the mortification of seeing 
Bienville retain his power, while he lost his ; because. 
De Muys never reached Louisiana, having died in 
Havana, on his way to the colony of which he had 
been appointed governor. To increase his vexation, 
he saw that most of the colonists, even those who had 
been momentarily opposed to Bienville, became sud- 



148 CONDITION OF THE COLONY. 

denly alive to his merits, when they were on the eve 
of losing him, and with spontaneous unanimity, sub- 
scribed a petition, by which they expressed their satis- 
faction with Bienville's administration, and supplicated 
the minister not to deprive them of such a wise and 
faithful governor. This was sufficiently distressing for 
La Salle's envious heart ; but his spleen was worked into 
a paroxysm of rage, when he was informed that his 
successor, the royal commissary, Diron d'Artaguelle, 
had made a report to the king, in which he declared, 
that all the accusations brought against Bienville, were 
mere slanderous inventions, which rested on no other 
foundation than the blackest malice. Writhing like a 
snake, under the unexpected blow, he still attempted 
to sting, and he wrote to France, " that D'Artaguelle 
was not deserving of any faith or credit ; that he had 
come to an understanding with Bienville, and that they 
were both equally bad and corrupt." 

It was by such misunderstandings among the chiefs 
of the colony, that its progress was checked so long. 
In 1708, its population did not exceed 279 persons. 
To that number must be added sixty Canadian vaga- 
bonds, who led a wandering and licentious life among 
the Indians. Its principal wealth consisted in 50 
cows, 40 calves, 4 bulls, 8 oxen, 1400 hogs, and 2000 
hens. This statement shows the feebleness of the 
colony after an existence of nine years. But the 



CONDITION OF THE COLONY. 149 

golden eggs had been laid in the land, and although 
kept torpid and unprofitable for more than a century, 
by the chilling contact of an imbecile despotism, they, 
in the progress of time, were hatched by the warm 
incubation of liberty into the production of that splen- 
did order of things, which is the wonder of the pre- 
sent age. 

But, at that time, the colony seemed to be gifted 
with little vitality, and the nursling of Bienville 
threatened to expire in his hands at every moment. 
The colonists were little disposed to undertake the 
laborious task of securing their subsistence by the cul- 
tivation of the soil, and they expected that the mother 
country would minister to all their wants. Servile 
hands would have been necessary, but Indian slavery 
was not found to be profitable, and Bienville wrote to 
his government to obtain the authorization of exchang- 
ing Indians for negroes, with the French West India 
Islands. " We shall give," said he, " three Indians for 
two negroes. The Indians, when in the islands, will 
not be able to run away, the country being unknown 
to them, and the negroes will not dare to become 
fugitives in Louisiana, because the Indians would kill 
them." This demand met with no favorable recep- 
tion. Bienville was so anxious to favor the develop- 
ment of the colony, that he was led by it into an un- 
just and despotic measure, as is proved by the follow- 



150 CONDITION OF THE COLONY. 

ing extract from one of his despatches. " I have 
ordered several citizens of La Rochelle to be closely- 
watched, beause they v^ish to quit the country. They 
have scraped up something by keeping taverns. There- 
fore it appears to me to be nothing but justice to 
force them to remain in the country, on the substance 
of which they have fattened." This sentiment, how- 
soever it may disagree with our modern notions of 
right and wrong, was not repugnant to the ethics of 
the time. 

In spite of the spirited exertions of Bienville, famine 
re-appeared in the colony, and in January, 1709, the 
inhabitants were reduced to live on acorns. As usual, 
under such circumstances, the intestine dissensions, of 
which such a melancholy description has been already 
given, became more acrid. The minds of men are not 
apt to grow conciliating under the double infliction of 
disappointment and famine, and the attacks upon Bien- 
ville were renewed with more than usual fierceness. 
La Salle, although now stripped of the trappings of office, 
still remained in the colony, to pursue his game, and to 
force the noble lord of the forest to stand at bay. His as- 
sociate in persecution, the Curate de la Vente, hallooed 
with him in zealous imitation, and it is much to be re- 
gretted that they were joined in the chase by Marigny 
de Mandeville, a brave and noble-minded officer, lately 
come to the country, who informed his government 



CONDITION OF THE COLONY. 151 

" that the colony never would prosper until it had a 
governor with an honest heart and with an energetic 
mind;" which meant that Bienville was deficient in 
both. It was an error committed by Marigny de Man- 
deville, and into which he was no doubt led by the 
misrepresentations of La Salle and of the Curate de la 
Vente. 

Bienville had so far remained passive, but was at 
last stung into angry recriminations, which he retorted 
on all his adversaries, particularly on the Curate de la 
Vente, who, said he, " had tried to stir up every body 
against him hy his calumnies, and who, in the mean 
time, did not blush to keep an open shop, where his mode 
of trafficking showed that he was a shrewd compound 
of the Arab and of the Jew." 

The scarcity of provisions became such in 1710, 
that Bienville informed his government that he had 
scattered the greater part of his men among the Indians, 
upon whom he had quartered them for food. This 
measure had been more than once adopted before, and 
demonstrates that the Indians could hardly have been 
so hostile as they have been represented ; otherwise, 
they would have availed themselves of such opportuni- 
ties to destroy the invaders of their territory. Be it as 
it may, the colony continued in its lingering condition, 
gasping for breath in its cradle, until 1712, when, on 
the 14th of September, the King of France granted to 



152 ROYAL CHARTER TO ANTHONY CROZAT. 

Anthony Crozat the exclusive privilege, for fifteen years, 
of trading in all that immense territory which, with its 
undefined limits, France claimed as her own under 
the name of Louisiana. Among other privileges, were 
those of sending, once a year, a ship to Africa for ne- 
groes, and of possessing and working all the mines of 
precious metals to be discovered in Louisiana, provided 
that one-fourth of their proceeds should be reserved for 
the king. He also had the privilege of owning for ever 
all the lands that he would improve by cultivation, all 
the buildings he would erect, and all the manufactures 
that he might establish. His principal obligation, in 
exchange for such advantages, was to send every year 
to Louisiana, two ships' loads of colonists, and, after 
nine years, to assume all the expenses of the adminis- 
tration of the colony, including those of the garrison 
and of its officers ; it being understood that, in consid- 
eration of such a change, he would have the privilege 
of nominating the officers to be appointed by the king. 
In the mean time, the annual sum of fifty thousand 
livres (810,000) was allowed to Crozat for the king's 
share of the expenses required by Louisiana. It was 
further provided that the laws, ordinances, customs, 
and usages of the Prevostship and Viscounty of Paris 
should form the legislation of the colony. There was 
also to be a government council, similar to the one 
established in San Domingo and Martinique. 



CONDITIONS OF THE CHARTER. 153 

This charter of concessions virtually made Crozat 
the supreme lord and master of Louisiana. Thus Lou- 
isiana was dealt with, as if it had been a royal farm, 
and leased by Louis the XlVth to the highest bidder. 
It is a mere business transaction, but which colors itself 
with the hue of romance, when it is remembered that 
Louisiana was the farm, Louis the XlVth the landlord, 
and that Anthony Crozat was the farmer. 

Anthony Crozat was one of those men who dignify 
commerce, and recall to memory those princely mer- 
chants, of whom Genoa, Venice, and Florence boasted 
of yore. Born a peasant's son, on the estate of one of 
the great patricians of France, he was, when a boy, 
remarked for the acuteness of his intellect ; and having 
the good fortune of being the foster brother of the only 
son of his feudal lord, he was sent to school by his noble 
patron, received the first rudiments of education, and 
at fifteen was placed, as clerk, in a commercial house. 
There, by the protection of the nobleman, who never 
ceased to evince the liveliest interest in his fate, and 
particularly by the natural ascendency of his strong 
genius, he rose, in the course of twenty years, to be a 
partner of his old employer, married his daughter, and 
shortly after that auspicious event, found himself, on 
the death of his father-in-law, one of the richest mer- 
chants in Europe. He still continued to be favored by 
circumstances, and having had the good fortune of 

8 



154 - HISTORY OF CROZAT. 

loaning large sums of money to the government in cases 
of emergency, he was rewarded for his services by his 
being ennobled and created Marquis du Chatel. 

So far, Crozat had known but the sunny side of life ; 
but for every man the hour of trial must strike, sooner 
or later, on the clock of fate, and the length or intense- 
ness of the felicity that one has enjoyed, is generally 
counterbalanced by a proportionate infliction of cala- 
mity. Happy is he, perhaps, whom adversity meets on 
the threshold of existence, and accompanies through 
part of his career. Then, the nerves of youth may 
resist the shock, and be even improved by the struggle. 
The mind and body, disciplined by the severe trial 
through which they have passed, have time to substitute 
gains for losses in the account book of life. At any 
rate, when the tribute of tears and sufferings is early 
paid, the debtor may hope for a clear and bright meri- 
dian ; and when the sun of his destiny sinks down in 
the west, he has some right to expect, if some clouds 
should gather round the setting orb, that it will only be 
to gladden the sight by the gorgeousness of their colors. 
But if smiling fortune, after having rocked her favorite 
in his cradle, gives him her uninterrupted attendance 
until his manhood is past, she is very apt to desert him 
on the first cold approach of old age, when he is most 
in need of her support ; for, the stern decree that man 
is born to suffer, must be accomplished before the por- 



DEATH OF HIS WIFE. 155 

tals of another life are open ; and then, woe to the 
gray-headed victim, who, after long days of luxurious 
ease, finds himself suddenly abandoned, a martyr in the 
arena of judgment, to the fangs and jaws of the wild 
beasts of an unfeeling and scoffing world ! Woe to 
him, if his Christian faith is not bound to his heart by 
adamantine chains, to subdue physical pain, to arm his 
soul with xlivine fortitude, and grace his last moments 
with sweet dignity and calm resignation ! 

Crozat was doomed to make this sad experiment. 
The first shaft aimed at him fell on his wife, whom he 
lost, ten years after the birth of his only child, a daugh- 
ter, now the sole hope of his house. Intense was his 
sorrow, and never to be assuaged, for no common 
companion his wife had been. Looking up to him 
with affectionate reverence as one, whom the laws, 
both divine and human, had appointed as her guide, 
she had lived rather in him than in herself. She had 
been absorbed into her husband, and the business of her 
whole life had been to study and to anticipate his 
wishes and wants. Endowed with all the graces of 
her sex, and with a cultivated intellect chastened by 
modesty, which hardly left any thing to be desired for 
its perfection, she rendered sweeter the part of minis- 
tering angel which she had assumed, to bless him in 
this world. With feminine art, she had incorporated 
herself with his organization, and gliding into the very 



15G HISTORY OF CROZAT. 

essence of his soul, she had become the orighiating 
spring of all his thoughts and sentiments. It was 
beautiful to see, how, entwining herself round his con- 
ceptions, his volition and actions, she had made herself 
a component part of his individuality, so that she 
really was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. Is 
it to be wondered at, that when she died, he felt that 
the luminary which lighted up his path had been ex- 
tinguished, and that a wheel had suddenly stopped 
within himself? From that fatal event, there never 
was a day when the recollections of the past did not 
fill his soul with anguish. 

Crozat's only consolation was his daughter. The 
never ceasing anxiety with which he watched over her, 
until she grew into womanhood, would beggar all 
description ; and even then she remained a frail flower, 
which, to be kept alive, required to be fanned by the 
gentlest zephyrs, and to be softly watered from that 
spring which gushes from the deep well of the heart, 
at the touch of true afiection. She was exquisitely 
beautiful, but there was this peculiarity in her beauty, 
that although her person presented that voluptuous 
symmetry, that rich fulness of form, and that delicate 
roundness of outline which artists admire, yet soul 
predominated in her so much over matter, that she 
looked rather like a spirit of the air, than an incarna- 
tion of mortality. She produced the effect of an 



Ills DAUGHTER ANDREA. 157 

unnatural apparition : forgetting the fascinations of 
the flesh, one would gaze at her as something not of 
this world, and feel for her such love as angels may- 
inspire. She appeared to be clothed in terrestrial 
substance, merely because it was necessary to that 
earthly existence which she wore as a garment not 
intended for her, and which had been put on only by 
mistake. She was out of place : there was something 
in her organization, which disqualified her for the 
companionship of the sons of Eve : she looked as if 
she had strayed from a holier sphere. Those who 
knew her were impressed with an undefinable feeling 
that she was a temporary loan made to earth by 
heaven, and that the slightest disappointment of the 
heart in her nether career, would send her instantly to 
a fitter and more congenial abode. Alas ! there are 
beings invested with such exquisite sensibility that the 
vile clay which enters into their composition, and 
which may be intended as a protecting texture, with- 
out which human life would be intolerable for the 
spirit within, imbibing too much of the ethereal essence 
to which it is allied, ceases to be a shield against the 
ills we are heirs to, in this valley of miseries. It is a 
mark set upon them ! It is a pledge that the wounded 
soul, writhing under repeated inflictions, will wear out 
its frail tenement, and soon escape from its ordeal. 
Such was the threatened fate of Andrea, the daughter 



158 HISTORY OF CUOZAT. 

of Crozat. And he knew it, the poor father ! he knew 
it, and he trembled ! and he hved in perpetual fear : 
and he would clasp his hands, and in such agonies as 
the paternal heart only knows, kneeling down, humbling 
himself in the dust, he would pour out prayers (oh, 
how eloquent !) that the Almighty, in his infinite mercy, 
would spare his child ! i 

Crozat had sedulously kept up the closest relations 
with his noble friend and patron, to whom there had 
also been born but one heir, a son, the sole pillar of a 
ducal house, connected with all the imperial and royal 
dynasties of Europe. A short time after his wife's 
death, Crozat had had the misfortune to follow to the 
grave the duke, his foster brother ; and his daughter 
Andrea, who was known to lack at home the tender 
nursing of a mother, had been tendered the splendid 
hospitality of the dowager duchess, where she had 
grown up in a sort of sisterly intimacy with the young- 
duke. There she had conceived, unknowingly to 
herself at first, the most intense passion for her youth- 
ful companion, which, when it revealed itself to her 
dismayed heart, was kept carefully locked up in its 
inmost recesses. Poor maiden ! The longum hihere 
amorem was fatally realized with her, and she could 
not tear herself from the allurements of the banquet 
upon which she daily feasted her aflfections. Unknown 
her secret, she lived in fancied security, and, for a 



HISTORY OF CROZAT. 159 

while, enjoyed as pure a happiness as may be attained 
to — the happiness of dreams ! 

One day, a rumor arose that a matrimonial alliance 
was in the way of preparation for that lineal descend- 
ant of a princely race, for the young duke, who was 
the concealed idol of her heart. There are emotions 
which it would be too much for human endurance to 
hide from a sympathetic eye, much less from parental 
penetration, and on that day the terrible truth burst 
upon Crozat, and stunned him with an unexpected 
blow. It was a hurricane of woes sweeping through 
his heart: he felt as if he and his child were in a 
tornado, out of which to save her was impossible. Too 
well he knew his Andrea, and too well he knew that 
she would not survive the withering of her hopes, 
wild as they were ! '• Time !" exclaimed he, as he 
paced his room with hurried steps, holding communion 
with himself, " Time, that worker of great things, must 
be gained! But how?" A sudden thought flashed 
through his brain! Thank God, he clutched the 
remedy ! Was it not currently reported and believed 
that the betrothed of the duke loved one, of equally 
noble birth, but whose proffered hand had been rejected 
by an ambitious father, merely because fortune, with 
her golden gifts, did not back his pretensions ? That 
was enough ! And Crozat, on that very day, had 
sought and found the despairing lover. " Sir V said 



100 HISTORY OF CROZAT, 

he to the astonished youth, " in the civil wars which 
desolated France during the minority of Louis the 
XlVth, and which ruined your family, several millions 
were extorted from your father by one, who then had 
the power. Here they are — it is a restitution — -ask no 
name — I am a mere agent and bound to secrecy." 
The strange tale was taken as true, and in a short 
time the betrothed of the young duke was led to the 
hymenial altar by a more successful rival, 

Crozat had been a traitor and a liar ! — a traitor to 
his friend and benefactor's son ! But he was a father ! 
— and he saw his daughter's tomb already wide open 
and gaping for the expected prey ! And was she not 
to be rescued at any cost ? And was he to stand with 
folded arms, and to remain passive, while, in his sight, 
despair slowly chiselled the cold sepulchral marble 
destined for his child ? No ! — he saved her, and did 
not stop to inquire whether the means he employed 
were legitimate. Now, he saw her smile again and 
resume, as it were, that current of life which was fast 
ebbing away ! — and he was happy ! And had he not 
a sufficient excuse to plead at that seat of judgment 
which every man has w^ithin his breast, when the 
shrill voice of conscience rose against him in accusa- 
tion, and said, " Thou hast done wrong ! to save thyself, 
or thine, thou hast been recreant to thy trust — thou 
hast injured thy neighbor, and acted dishonorably ?" 



IHSTORY OF CllOZAT. 161 

Crozat, however, was not the man to lay a flattering 
unction to his souL There was in him no false logic 
of a corrupt mind to argue successfully against the 
plain voice of truth : his w^ere not the ears of the 
wicked, deaf to the admonitions of our inward moni- 
tor. However gently conscience might have spoken 
her disapprobation, he heard it, and stood self con- 
demned. 

He went to his patron's widow, to the duchess, and 
told her all — and prostrating himself at her feet, 
awaited her sentence. She raised him gently from his 
humble posture, and self-collected, soaring as it were 
above human passions, while she riveted upon him the 
steadfast look of her calm, blue eyes, thus she spoke 
with Juno-like dignity, and with a sweet, musical 
voice, but seeming as cold to the afflicted father, in 
spite of its bland intonations, as the northern wind : 
" Crozat, this is a strange and a moving tale. You 
stand forgiven, for you have acted as nature would 
prompt most men to do, and even if your error had 
been more grievous, your manly candor and frank con- 
fession would redeem the guilt. Therefore, let it pass ; 
let your conscience be relieved from further pangs on 
this subject. My esteem and friendship stand the 
same for you as before. What grieves me to the 
heart, is the deplorable situation of your Andrea, who 
is mine also, and whom I love like a daughter, although 



162 HISTORY or crozat. 

she cannot be permitted to assume such a relation to 
me in the eye of the world. She is young, and it shall 
be our special care, by gentle means, to cure her by 
degrees of the wild passion which has possessed her 
soul, poor child. As this, our first conversation on this 
painful topic, shall be the last, I wish to express my 
sentiments to you with sufficient fullness, that I may 
be clearly understood. I wish you to know that my 
heart is not inflated with vulgar pride. I do not think 
that my blood is different from yours in its composi- 
tion, and is noble solely because I descend from a par- 
ticular breed, and that yours is vile, because the acci- 
dental circumstance of birth has placed you among 
the plebeians and what v/e call the base and the low- 
born. A peasant's son, if he be virtuous and great in 
soul and in mind, is more in my estimation than a 
king's, if an idiot or a wicked man. Thus far, I sup- 
pose we understand each other. There is but one 
valuable nobility — that in which hereditary rank is 
founded on a long succession of glorious deeds. Such 
is the case with our house. It has been an historical 
one, trunk and branches, for much more than twelve 
centuries. Kings, emperors claim a kindred blood 
with ours. Our name is indissolubly bound with the 
history of Europe and Asia, and the annals of the 
kingdom of France, in particular, may be said to be 
the records of our house. We have long ceased to 



HISTUliV OF CROZAT. 163 

count the famous knights, the high constables, the 
marshals, generals, and other great men who have 
sprung from our fruitful race. This is what I call no- 
bility. To this present day, none of that race has ever 
contracted an alliance which was not of an illustrious 
and historical character. It is a principle, nay more, 
Crozat, it is a religion with us, and it is too late for us 
to turn apostates. It is to that creed, which we have 
cherished from time immemorial, that we are indebted 
for what we are. If once untrue to ourselves, there is 
an instinctive presentiment which tells us that we shall 
be blasted with the curse of heaven. Right or wrong, 
it is a principle, I say ; and there is such mysterious 
vitality and power in a principle, be it what it may, 
that if strictly and systematically adhered to for ages, 
it will work wonders. Therefore the traditions of our 
house must stand unbroken for ever, coeval with its 
existence, and remain imperishable pyramids of our 
faith in our own worth. 

" 1 know that your daughter, whom I have raised 
in my lap, and whose transcendent qualities I appre- 
ciate as they deserve, would be the best of wives, and 
bless my son with earthly bliss. But, Crozat, those of 
my race are not born to be happy, but to be great. 
This is the condition of their existence. They do not 
marry for themselves, but for the glorification of their 
house. It is a sacred mission, and it must be fulfilled. 



164 HISTORY OF CllOZAT. ^ 

Every animated thing in the creation must follow the 
bent of its nature. The wooing dove may be satisfied 
with the security of its lot in the verdant foliage of 
the forest, but the eagle must speed to the sun, even if 
he be consumed by its rays. Such being the fate of 
our race, a hard one in many respects, you see, my 
dear Crozat — and I say so with deep regret at the con- 
sequences which you anticipate, not however without 
a hope that they may be averted — you must clearly see 
that an alliance between our families is an impossi- 
bility. It would be fatal to your daughter, who would 
be scorched by ascending, Phaeton-like, into a sphere 
not calculated for her ; and it would also be fatal to my 
son, who would be disgraced for his being recreant to 
his ancestors and to his posterity. You deserve infi- 
nite credit for having risen to the summit where you 
now stand. You have been ennobled, and you are one 
of the greatest merchants of the age, but you are not 
yet a Medici ! You have not forced your way, like 
that family, into the ranks of the potentates of the 
earth. If, indeed — but why talk of such idle dreams ? 
Adieu, Crozat, be comforted — be of good cheer. — 
Things may not be as bad as you think for your daugh- 
ter. Her present attachment not being encouraged, 
she may in time form another one. Farewell, my 
friend, put your faith in God : he is the best healer of 
the wounds of the heart !"' 



'HISTORY OF CROZAT, 165 

Crozat bowed low to the duchess, whose extended 
hand he kissed reverentially, and he withdrew from 
the chilling frigidity of her august presence. Crouch- 
ing under the weight of his misfortune, and under 
the consciousness of the invincible and immortal 
pride he had to deal with, he tottered to his solitary 
room, and sinking into a large gothic chair, buried his 
feverish head into his convulsive hands. Hot tears 
trickled through the contracted fingers, and he sobbed 
and groaned aloud, when he recalled, one by one, all 
the words of the duchess, as they slowly fell from her 
lips, burning his soul, searing his brains, filtering 
through his heart like distilled drops of liquid fire. 
Suddenly he started up with fierce energy ; his face 
was lighted with dauntless resolution : he ground 
his teeth, clinched his fist, as if for a struggle, and shook 
it in defiance of some invisible adversary, while he 
moved on with expanded chest and with a frame 
dilating into the majesty of some imaginary command. 
" O Daughter," he exclaimed, " thou shalt be saved, and 
if necessary, I will accomplish impossibilities. Did 
not the proud duchess say that if I were a Medici ! 
. . . the ruler of provinces! — if I had an historical 
name ? she did ! and I know that she would keep her 
word. Well then ! ye powers of heaven or hell, that 
helped the Medici, I bow to ye, and call ye to my aid, 
by the only incantation which I know, the strong 



166 HISTORY OF CROZAT ORIGIN OF HIS CHARTER. 

magic of an energetic mind. I invoke your assistance, 
be the sacrifice on my part whatever it may : — I will 
sign any bond ye please — I will set my all on the cast 
of a die — and gamble against fate. My daughter is 
the stake, and death to her and to me the forfeit!" 
This was a sinful ebullition of passion — the only excuse 
the paroxysm of a delirious mind. But still it was 
impious, and his protecting angel averted his face and 
flew upward. Alas! poor Crozat! 

Hence the origin of that charter, by which Louisi- 
ana was ceded, as it were, to Crozat. He flattered 
himself with the hope that, if successful in his gigantic 
enterprise, a few years might ripen the privileges he 
iiad obtained into the concession of a principality, 
which he would form in the New World, a principality 
which, as a great feudatory vassal, he would hold in 
subjection to the crown of France. Then he would 
say to the proud duchess, " I am a Medici. My name 
outweighs many a haughty one in the scales of history : 
• — my nobility rests not only on title, but on noble 
deeds. These were your words — I hold you to them 
— redeem your pledge — one of your blood cannot be 
false — I claim your son — I give him a princess for his 
bride, and domains ten times broader than France, or 
any kingdom in Europe, for her dowry !" 

So hoped the heart of the father — so schemed the 
head of the great merchant ! What man ever had 



THE HOPES OF CROZAT. 167 

stronger motives to fire his genius ? What ambition 
more sacred and more deserving of reward than his ? 
And yet none, save one, guessed at the motives which 
actuated him ! He was taxed with being insatiable of 
wealth : people wondered at his gigantic avidity. 
Some there were, who shrugged their shoulders, and 
said that he was tempting fate, that it was time for 
him to be satisfied with what he had, without exposing 
his present wonderful acquisitions for the uncertainty 
of a greater fortune. Such are the blind judgments of 
the world ! Crozat was blamed for being too ambi- 
tious, and envy railed at the inordinate avidity of the 
rash adventurer, when pity ought to have wept over 
the miseries of the broken-hearted father. On the 
dizzy eminence whither he had ascended, Crozat, when 
he looked round for sympathy, was met by the basilisk 
stare of a jealous, cold-blooded world, who stood by, 
calculating his chances of success, and grinning in 
anticipation at the wished-for failure of his defeated 
schemes. At such a sight, his heart sank within his 
breast, and elevating his hands, clasped in prayer, 
" Angels and ministers of grace," he said, " ye know 
that it is no ambitious cravings, but the racked feelings 
of a father, that urge me to the undertaking, upon 
which I call down your blessings. Be ye my friends 
and protectors in heaven, for Crozat has none on this 
earth." 



FOURTH LECTURE, 



FOURTH LECTURE. 

Lamothe Cadillac, Governor of Louisiana — Situation of the 
Colony in 1713 — Feud between Cadillac and Bienville — Cha- 
racter OF RiCHEBOURG FiRST EXPEDITION AGAINST THE NaTCIIEZ 

— De l'Epinay SUCCEEDS Cadillac — The Curate de la Vente — 
Expedition of St. Dennis to Mexico — His Adventures — J al- 
lot, THE Surgeon — In 1717 Crozat gives up nis Charter — His 
Death. 

When Crozat obtained the royal charter, granting 
him so many commercial privileges in Louisiana, the 
military forces which were in the colony, and which 
constituted its only protection, did not exceed two 
companies of infantry of fifty men each. There were 
also seventy-five Canadians in the pay of the king, and 
they were used for every species of service. The 
balance of the population hardly came up to three 
hundred souls, and that population, small as it was and 
almost imperceptible, happened to be scattered over a 
boundless territory, where they could not communicate 
together without innumerable difficulties, frightful dan- 
gers, and without delays which, in these our days of 
rapid locomotion, can scarcely be sufficiently appreciat- 
ed. As to the blacks, who now have risen to such 



172 FORTS CONSTRUCTED. 

importance in our social polity, they did not number 
more than twenty heads. It is probable, that of this 
scanty population, there were not fifty persons in the 
present limits of the State of Louisiana, and the con- 
trast, which now presents itself to the mind, affords a 
rich treat to the imagination, and particularly to our 
national pride, since we were the wonder- w^orking 
power. * 

The possession of the province of Louisiana, if 
possession it can be called, France had secured by the 
construction of five forts. They were located at Mo- 
bile, at Biloxi, Ship Island, Dauphine Island, and on 
the bank of the Mississippi. Those fortifications were 
of a very humble nature, and their materials were 
chiefly composed of stakes, logs and clay. They suf- 
ficed, however, to intimidate the Indians. Such w^ere 
the paltry results, after fifteen years, of the attempt 
made by a pow^erful government to colonize Louisiana; 
and now, one single man, a private individual, was 
daring enough to grapple and struggle with an under- 
taking, which, so far, had proved abortive in the hands 
of the great Louis the XlVth ! 

It must be remembered that De Muys, who had been 
appointed to supersede Bienville, had died in Havana in 
1707, and that the youthful founder of the colony had, 
by that event, remained Governor ad interim of Loui- 
siana. But on the 17th of May, 1713, a great change 



ARRIVAL OF LAMOTHE CADILLAC. 173 

had come over the face of things, and the colonists 
stood on the tiptoe of expectation, when they w^ere in- 
formed that a ship had arrived w^ith Lamothe Cadillac, 
as Governor, Duclos as Commissary in the place of 
D'Artaguette, who had returned to France, Lebas as 
Comptroller, Dirigoin and La Loire des Ursins, as the 
agents of Crozat in the colony. Bienville was retained 
as Lieutenant Governor, and it was expected that, in 
that subordinate office, he would, from his knowledge 
of the state of atfairs in the province, be of signal use 
to his successor, and be a willing instrument, which the 
supposed superior abilities of Lamothe Cadillac would 
turn to some goodly purpose. This certainly was a 
compliment paid to the patriotism of Bienville, but 
was it not disregarding too much the frailties of human 
nature ? Cheerfully to obey, where one formerly had 
nothing to do but to issue the word of command, is 
not an every day occurrence, and it is a trial to which 
politic heads ought not to expose the virtue of man. 

The principal instructions given by Crozat to La- 
mothe Cadillac were, that he should diligently look 
after mines, and endeavor to find out an opening for the 
introduction of his goods and merchandise into the 
Spanish colonies of Mexico, either with the consent of 
the authorities, or without it, by smuggling. If he 
succeeded in these two enterprises, Crozat calculated 
that he would speedily obtain inexhaustible wealth, such 



174 HISTORY OF CADILLAC. 

wealth as would enable him to throw a large popula- 
tion into Louisiana, as it were by magic, and to realize 
the fond dreams of his paternal heart. Impatient of 
delay, he had, in order to stimulate the exertions of 
Lamothe Cadillac, secured to him a considerable share 
in the profits which he hoped to realize. Lamothe Ca- 
dillac had fought with valor in Canada, and as a reward 
for his services, (so, at least, his commission declared,) 
had been appointed by the king, governor of Louisiana. 
Had Crozat known the deficiencies of that officer's in- 
tellect, he, no doubt, would have strongly remonstrated 
against such a choice. 

Lamothe Cadillac was born on the banks of the 
Garonne, in the province of Gascony, in France. He 
was of an ancient family, which, for several centuries, 
had, by some fatality or other, been rapidly sliding down 
from the elevated position which it had occupied. 
When Lamothe Cadillac was ushered into life, the do- 
mains of his ancestors had, for many past generations, 
been reduced to a few acres of land. That small 
estate was dignified, however, with an old dilapidated 
edifice, which bore the name of castle, although, at a 
distance, to an unprejudiced eye, it presented some un- 
lucky resemblance to a barn. A solitary tower dressed, 
as it were, in a gown of moss and ivy, raised its gray 
head to a height which might have been called respect- 
able, and which appeared to offer special attraction to 



HISTORY OF CADILLAC. 175 

crows, swallows and bats. Much to the mortification 
of the present owner, it had been called by the young 
wags of the neighborhood, " Cadillac s Rookery," and 
was currently known under that ungenteel appellation. 
Cadillac had received a provincial and domestic educa- 
tion, and had, to his twenty-fifth year, moved in a very 
contracted sphere. Nay, it may be said that he had 
almost lived in solitude, for he had lost both his parents, 
when hardly eighteen summers had passed over his 
head, and he had since kept company with none but 
the old tutor to whom he was indebted for such classi- 
cal attainments as he had acquired. His mind being 
as much curtailed in its proportions, as his patrimonial 
acres, his intellectual vision could not extend very far, 
and if Cadillac was not literally a dunce, it was well 
known that Cadillac's wits would never run away 
with him. 

Whether it was owing to this accidental organiza- 
tion of his brain, or not, certain it is that one thing 
afforded the most intense delight to Cadillac : — it was, 
that no blood so refined as his own ran in the veins of 
any other human being, and that his person was the 
very incarnation of nobility. With such a conviction 
rooted in his heart, it is not astonishing that his tall, thin, 
and emaciated body should have stiffened itself into the 
most accurate observation of the perpendicular. In- 
deed, it was exceedingly pleasant, and exhilarating to 



176 HIriTORY OF CADILLAC. 

the lungs, to see Cadillac, on a Sunday morning, strut- 
ting along in full dress, on his way to church, through 
the meagre village attached to his hereditary domain. 
His bow to the mayor and to the curate was something 
rare, an exquisite burlesque of infinite majesty, thawing 
into infinite affability. His ponderous wig, the curls of 
which spread like a peacock's tail, seemed to be alive 
with conscious pride at the good luck it had of cover- 
ing a head of such importance to the human race. 
His eyes, in whose favor nature had been pleased to de- 
viate from the oval into the round shape, were pos- 
sessed with a stare of astonishment, as if they meant 
to convey the expression that the spirit within was in 
a trance of stupefaction at the astounding fact that the 
being it animated did not produce a more startling 
effect upon the world. The physiognomy which I am 
endeavoring to depict, was rendered more remarkable 
by a stout, cocked up, snub nose, which looked as if it 
had hurried back, in a fright, from the lips, to squat in 
rather too close proximity to the eyes, and which, with 
its dilated nostrils, seemed always on the point of 
sneezing at something thrusting itself between the wind 
and its nobility. His lips wore a mocking smile, as if 
sneering at the strange circumstance that a Cadillac 
should be reduced to be an obscure, penniless individ- 
ual. But, if Cadillac had his weak points, it must also 
be told that he was not without his strong ones. Thus, 



Cadillac's marriage. 177 

he had a great deal of energy, bordering, it is true, 
upon obstinacy ; — he was a rigidly moral and pious 
man; — and he was too proud not to be valiant. 

With a mind so framed, was it to be wondered at 
that Cadillac deemed it a paramount duty to himself 
and to his Maker, not to allow his race to become ex- 
tinct ? Acting under a keen sense of that duty, and 
impressed with a belief that he might, by a rich alli- 
ance, restore his house to that ancient splendor which 
he considered as its birthright, but of which evil 
tongues said, that it was indeed so truly ancient, that 
it had long ceased to be recorded in the memory of man, 
he, one day, issued in state and in his gayest apparel, 
from his feudal tower, and for miles around, paid for- 
mal visits to all the wealthy patricians of his neighbor- 
hood. He was every where received with that high- 
bred courtesy, which those of that class extend to all, 
and particularly to such as belong to their own order, 
but he was secretly voted a quiz. After a few months 
of ineffectual efforts, Cadillac returned to his pigeon 
hole, in tlie most disconsolate mood ; and, after a year's 
repining, he was forced to content himself with the 
hand of a poor spinster, who dwelt in a neighboring 
town, where, like Cadillac, she lingered in all the 
pride of unsullied descent and hereditary poverty. 
Shortly after her marriage, the lady, who was a distant 
relation to the celebrated Duke of Lauzun, recommend- 

y 



178 CADILLAC APPOINTED CAPTAIN. 

ed herself and her husband to the patronage of that 
nobleman, who was then one of the brightest of that 
galaxy of stars that adorned the court of Louis the 
XlVth. Her letter was written in a quaint, fantastic 
style, and Lauzun, who received it on his way to the 
king's morning levee, showed it to the monarch, and 
was happy enough, by the drollery of his comments, to 
force a smile from those august lips. Availing himself 
of that smile, Lauzun, who was in one of his good fits, 
for the kindness of his nature was rather problematical, 
and the result of accident rather than of disposition, 
obtained for his poor connexion the appointment of 
captain to one of the companies of infantry, which 
had been ordered to Canada. 

The reception of this favor with a congratulatory 
letter from Lauzun, added stilts to Cadillac's pompos- 
ity, and his few dependents and vassals became really 
astounded at the sublimity of his attitudes. On that 
occasion, the increased grandeur of his habitual car- 
riage was but the translation of the magnificence of 
his cogitations. He had heard of the exploits of Cor- 
tez and Pizarro, and he came to the logical conclusion 
in his own mind that Canada would be as glorious a 
field as Peru or Mexico, and that he would at least 
rival the achievements of the Spanish heroes. Fame 
and wealth were at last within his grasp, and the long 
eclipsed star of the Cadillacs would again blaze out 
with renewed lustre I 



CADILLAC IN CANADA. 179 

The dreams of Cadillac were soon put to flight by- 
sad realities, when he landed in Canada, where hard- 
ships of every kind assailed him. The snows and 
blasts of Siberian winters, the heat of summers equal 
to those of Africa, endless marches and counter- 
marches after a wary and perfidious enemy, visible 
only when he could attack with tenfold chances in 
his favor, the sufferings of hunger and thirst which 
were among the ordinary privations of his every day 
life, the wants of civilization so keenly felt amidst all 
the destitution of savage existence, days of bodily and 
mental labor, and nights of anxious vigil, hair-breadth 
escapes on water and on land, the ever-recurring dan- 
ger of being tomahawked and scalped, the war-whoops 
and incessant attacks of the Indians, the honorable 
distinctions of wounds and of a broken constitution in 
the service of his country — these were the concomi- 
tants and the results of Cadillac's career in Canada 
during twenty years ! All this Cadillac had supported 
with remarkable fortitude, although not without impa- 
tience, wondering all the time that something or other 
did not happen to make him what he thought nature 
and his birth intended and entitled him to be — a great 
man ! 

But twenty years had elapsed, and at their expira- 
tion, he found himself no better than a lieutenant- 
colonel. To increase his vexation, he had no other 



180 CADILLAC IN CANADA. 

issue by his marriage than a daughter, now eighteen 
years of age, and thus he remained without the pros- 
pect of having an heir to continue his hne, and to bear 
his noble name. The disappointment of his hopes in 
this respect, was the keenest of all his afflictions ; he 
was approaching the trying climacteric of fifty-four, 
and he was as poor as when he departed from the 
banks of the Garonne. A lieutenant-colonel he was, 
and would remain, in all probability. His superior 
officer seemed to be marvellously tenacious of his post 
and of life, and would neither die nor advance one 
step beyond his grade : bullets spared him, and minis- 
ters never thought of his promotion. Thus it was 
clear, from all appearances, that Cadillac was not in a 
position soon to become a marshal of France, and that 
Canada was not the land where he could acquire that 
wealth he was so ambitious of, to enshrine his old gray- 
headed tower, as a curious relic of the feudal power 
of his ancestry, within the splendid architecture of a 
new palace, and to revive the glories of his race. 
Hence he had imbibed the most intense contempt for 
the barren country where so much of his life had been 
spent in vain, and he would sneer at the appellation of 
New France given to Canada; he thought it was a 
disparagement to the beautiful and noble kingdom of 
which he boasted to be a native, and he frequently 
amused his brother officers with his indignation on this 



CADILLAC IN CANADA. 181 

subject. " This world may revolve on its axis to all 
eternity," he would say, " and Canada will no more be 
made to resemble France, than a dwarf will ever be 
the personification of a giant!" This was a favorite 
phrase with which he loved to close his complaints 
against the object of his abomination, whenever he 
was betrayed into an expression of his feelings ; for of 
late, he had become silent and moody, and only talked, 
when he could not do otherwise. It was evident that 
his mind was wrapped up within itself, and absorbed 
in the solution of some problem, or the contemplation 
of a subject which taxed all its powers of thought. 
What could it be ? But at last it was discovered that 
the object of Cadillac's abstracted cogitations, was the 
constant blasting of all his hopes, in spite of his 
mighty efforts to realize them. So strange did it ap- 
pear to him, that he could come to no other conclu- 
sion than that, if he had not risen higher on the 
stage of life, it was necessarily because he was spell 
hound. 

Cadillac, since his arrival in Canada, had kept up, 
with the great connexion he had acquired by his mar- 
riage, the Duke of Lauzun, a regular correspondence, 
in which, to the infinite glee of that nobleman, he used 
to enumerate his manifold mishaps. Now, acting un- 
der the impression that he was decidedly the victim of 
fate or witchcraft, he wrote to Lauzun a long letter. 



182 CADILLAC GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA. 

in which he surpassed himself in his bombastic style, 
and out-heroding Herod, poured out on paper, in inco- 
herent declamations, the vexed spirit which ailed him, 
and cut such antics in black and white, that Lauzun, 
on the perusal of this epistolary elegy, laughed him- 
self into tears, and almost screamed with delight. It 
happened at that time, that the ministry was in search 
of a governor for Louisiana, and the mischievous Lau- 
zun, who thought that the more he exalted Cadillac, 
the greater source of merriment he prepared for him- 
self, had sufficient power to have him appointed to that 
office. This profligate nobleman never troubled his 
wits about what would become of Louisiana under 
such an administration. Provided he found out a fit 
theatre, and had it properly illuminated, to enjoy, at his 
ease, the buffooneries of a favorite actor, what cared 
he for the rest ? 

Before taking possession of his government, Cadil- 
lac went to France, to receive the instructions of the 
ministry, and to revisit his paternal domain. His re- 
turn produced no slight sensation within a radius of 
forty miles round his so long deserted hearth. If the 
waggish boys who used to torment him with their 
pranks had grown into manhood, tradition had handed 
down so much of Cadillac's peculiarities to their suc- 
cessors, that when he appeared before them, it was not 
as a stranger, but rather as an old acquaintance. 



CADILLAC VISITS HIS BIRTHPLACE. 183 

Dressed in the fashion which prevailed at the time he 
left his native province, twenty years before, and 
which at present helped to set off with more striking 
effect the oddities of his body and mind, he was, as 
before, an object of peculiar attraction to the mischiev- 
ous propensities of the juvenility of his neighborhood. 
One of them., still fresh from the university, where he 
had won academical honors, availing himself, in order 
to display the powers of his muse, of Cadillac's re- 
appearance at home, composed a ballad which he 
called, " The Return of the Iroquois Chief,'' and which 
was a parody of a celebrated one, well known as 
" The Knight's Return from Palestine." It met with 
great success, and was sung more than once under the 
Gothic windows of Cadillac's tower. But he listened 
to the sarcastic composition with a smile of ineffa- 
ble contempt. " Let them laugh at my past misfor- 
tunes," he would say to himself, " the future will 
avenge my wrongs, and my enemies will be jaundiced 
with the bile of envy. I am now governor of Louis- 
iana, of that favored land, of which so many won- 
ders are related. This is no longer the frozen climate 
of Canada, but a genial region, which, from its conti- 
guity, must be akin to that of Mexico, where the hot 
rays of the sun make the the earth teem with gold, 
diamonds, and rubies !" Working himself into a par- 
oxysm of frenzied excitement, he struck passionately. 



184 Cadillac's first impressions 

with the pahii of his hand, the wall of the room he was 
pacing to and fro, and exclaimed, " O venerable pile, 
which derision calls Cadillac s Rooherij, I will yet 
make thee a tower of strength and glory ! I will gild 
each of thy moss-coated stones, and thou shalt be a 
tabernacle for men to wonder at and to w^orship !" 
As he spoke, his eyes became suffused with tears, and 
there was so much feeling and pathos in his action, 
and in the expression of his aspirations, that, for the 
first time in his life, not only he momentarily ceased 
to be ridiculous, but, to one who had seen him then, 
would have appeared not destitute of a certain degree 
of dignity, and perhaps not unworthy of respectful 
sympathy. Such is the Qiagic of deep sentiment ! 

When Cadillac landed on the bleak shore of Dau- 
phine or Massacre Island, what he saw w^as very far 
from answering his expectations. From the altitude of 
flight to which his imagination had risen, it is easy to 
judge of the rapidity of its precipitate descent. The 
shock received from its sudden fall was such as to pro- 
duce a distraction of the mind, bordering on absolute 
madness. As soon as Cadillac recovered from the be- 
wildered state of astonishment into which he had been 
thrown, he sent to the minister of the marine depart- 
ment a description of the country, of which I shall only 
give this short abstract : " The wealth of Dauphine 
Island," said he, " consists of a score of fig-trees, three 



OF LOUISIANA. 185 

wild pear-trees, and three apple-trees of the same na- 
ture, a dwarfish plum-tree, three feet high, with seven 
bad looking plums, thirty plants of vine, with nine 
bunches of half-rotten and half-dried-up grapes, forty 
stands of French melons, and some pumpkins. This is 
the terrestrial paradise of which we had heard so much ! 
Nothing but fables and lies !" 

It will be recollected that Lamothe Cadillac had 
arrived on the 13th of May. He had since been ex- 
ploring the courftry, and with his usual sagacity, he 
passed this remarkable judgment on Lower Louisiana : 
" This is a very wretched country, good for nothing, 
and incapable of producing either tobacco, wheat, or 
ve2;etables, even as hish as Natchez." It is fortunate 
that from this oracular decision there has been an ap- 
peal, and we now know whether it has been confirmed 
or annulled. 

The 1st of January, 1714, had come in due time, 
and Cadillac had not allowed his unfavorable opinions 
of Louisiana to depart with the expiring year, if we 
may judge from the dispatch in which he said : " The 
inhabitants are no better than the country ; they are 
the very scum and refuse of Canada, ruffians, who have 
thus far cheated the gibbet of its due, vagabonds, who 
are without subordination to the laws, without any 
respect for religion or for the government, graceless 
profligates, who are so steeped in vice that they prefer 



186 Cadillac's auARRELs. 

the Indian females to French women ! How can I find 
a remedy for such evils, when his Majesty instructs me 
to behave with extreme lenity, and in such a manner 
as not to provoke complaints ! But what shall I say of 
the troops, who are without discipline, and scattered 
among the Indians, at whose expense they subsist ?" 
Cadillac went on in this strain, in no sparing style, and 
summed up the whole with this sweeping declaration : 
" The colony is not worth a straw for the moment ; but 
I shall endeavor to make something of it, if God grants 
me health." 

God granted the worthy governor as robust health 
as he could have wished, but without enabling him to 
redeem his word, with regard to bettering the condition 
of the colony; and at the expiration of the year 1714, 
Cadillac found out that his situation, as an administrator, 
was far from being an enviable one. He had quarrelled 
with Dirigoin, one of Crozat's agents, because, if we 
take his representations as true, he was a fool ; and 
with the comptroller, Lebas, because he was dissipated ; 
with the inhabitants, because they were dissolute and 
had hitherto refused to build a church, which was a 
thing not yet to be found in the whole colony ; with 
the soldiers, because they were without discipline ; with 
the officers, and particularly with Bienville, Boisbriant, 
Chateaugue, and Serigny, because they neglected to 
apply for the holy sacrament, even at Easter ; with the 



DISSENSIONS IN THE COLONY. 187 

commissary, Duclos, because his views were different 
from his own on more than one occasion ; with Riche- 
bourg, a captain of dragoons, who had come with him 
in a ship of the Hne, because he had seduced most of 
the girls who had embarked with them for Louisiana, 
and who ought to have been respected ; with the girls 
themselves, because they had suffered their virtue to be 
seduced, which was the cause of their remaining on 
his hands, inasmuch as every one refused to marry them 
on account of their known misconduct. Is it astonish- 
ing, that, under such untoward circumstances, Cadillac's 
displeasure at his situation should have swelled into 
such gigantic proportions as to induce him to allow his 
gathering indignation to embrace the whole of America 
within ttie scope of his animadversion ? Is it not to be 
supposed that his understanding must have been a little 
confused by his perplexities, when he wrote to the min- 
istry — " Believe me, this whole continent is not worth 
having, and our colonists are so dissatisfied that they 
are all disposed to run away?" 

The feud between the magnates of the land grew 
every day more fierce, and the colony presented the 
aspect of two hostile camps, Trojans and Greeks, tug- 
ging in irreconcilable enmity. On one side, there was 
the governor, who was the Agamemnon of his party, 
and who was backed by Marigny de Mandeville, Bagot, 
Blondel, Latour, Villiers, and Terrine, scions of noble 



188 DISSENSIONS IN THE COLONY. 

houses, and all of them young and briUiant officers, who 
would join in any strife merely for the sake of excite- 
ment. The fanatic Curate de la Vent, was their Cal- 
chas, and stimulated them to the contest. On the other 
side stood Lieutenant-Governor Bienville, the Hector 
of the opposition, with the king's commissary Duclos, 
Boisbriant, Chateaugue, Richebourg, Du Tisne, Serigny, 
and others of some note or influence, who were at least 
fully a match for their antagonists. Thus, on this small 
theatre, the human passions were as keenly at work, 
and there was as hot a struggle for petty power, as if 
the stage for their display had been a more elevated 
one, and the objects of contention more exciting to am- 
bition. 

From the annals of the Dutch settlements of New- 
York, or rather from the overflowing richness of his 
own imagination, which, to be prolific, had only to alight 
on and to be connected with a favorite subject, Wash- 
ington Irving drew those humorous sketches, which 
first gave celebrity to his name. But in the early his- 
tory of Louisiana, which has nothing to borrow from 
the fields of fiction, there spring up characters and inci- 
dents, fraught with as much originality, and tinged with 
as much romance, as any so felicitously described by 
him in his productions, or by other authors in any work 
of fancy. What writer could pretend, in his most 
whimsical creations, to produce a being more fantasti- 



CADILLAC NEGLECTS ITS INTERESTS. 189 

cal than Lamothe Cadillac ? What powers of inven- 
tion could match his style and the sentiments expressed 
in his letters ? But let us follow the erratic course pur- 
sued by this eccentric personage. 

He had come to Louisiana to acquire sudden wealth 
by the discovery of mines, and not to superintend and 
foster the slow and tedious progress of civilization. 
Hence, it is not to be wondered at, that, on his receiv- 
ing, one day, positive orders to assist the agents 
of Crozat in establishing trading settlements or posts 
on the Wabash and on the Ilhnois, he got out of humor, 
and in a fit of impatience, had the hardihood to write 
back to the ministry, in these terms : " I have seen 
Crozat's instructions to his agents. I thought they 
issued from a lunatic asylum, and there appeared to 
me to be no more sense in them than in the Apoca- 
lypse. What ! Is it expected that, for any commercial 
or profitable purposes, boats will ever be able to run up 
the Mississippi, into the Wabash, the Missouri, or the 
Red River ? One might as well try to bite a slice off 
the moon I Not only are those rivers as rapid as the 
Rhone, but in their crooked course, they imitate to 
perfection a snake's undulations. Hence, for instance, 
on every turn of the Mississippi, it would be necessary 
to wait for a change of wind, if wind could be had, 
because this river is so lined up with thick woods, that 
very little wind has access to its bed." 



190 CADILLAC ENDEAVORS TO DISCOVER MINES. 

As to the ministerial expectations that he should 
devote most of his time to favoring agricultural pur- 
suits among the colonists, Cadillac took it in high dud- 
geon, that such recommendations should ever be ad- 
dressed to him, as if he had not something better to 
attend to — the discovery of gold, diamonds and pearls ! 
To trouble himself about conceding and locating lands, 
was a thing concerning which he never admitted the 
possibility of his being seriously employed, and he 
treated the matter very lightly in one of his dispatches, 
in which he said to the ministry, " Give the colonists as 
much land as they please. Why stint the measure ? 
The lands are so bad that there is no necessity to care 
for ^the number of acres. A copious distribution of 
them would be cheap liberality." 

Thus, agriculture and commerce had failed to en- 
gage the sympathies of Cadillac, who, since the first 
day he landed in Louisiana, had bent all his energies 
and all the means at his command, towards the disco- 
very of mines. He had sent Canadians in every di- 
rection to explore for the hidden treasures of the 
earth, but months had elapsed without gratifying the 
cravings of Cadillac's appetite for gold. Some of the 
Canadians had been killed by the Indians : — others 
found so much amusement in their favorite avocations 
of fishing and hunting, that they forgot the duties im- 
posed upon them, and for the discharge of which they 



EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE GOVERNOR. 191 

were paid : — there were more than one who, having 
gone so far as the lUinois and the Missouri, suddenly be- 
thought themselves of some love-sick maid, some doting 
mother or aged father, whom they had left pining on 
the banks of the St. Lawrence, and instead of return- 
ing down the Mississippi, to give to Cadillac an 
account of their mission, they pursued their way up to 
their native villages. It must be confessed that all were 
little competent and too ignorant to investigate proper- 
ly the object of their inquiries. The few who came 
back had but " a beggarly account of empty boxes " to 
lay before Cadillac. But if he had been favored with a 
romantic turn of mind, he would have found some 
indemnification in the recital of their marvellous ad- 
ventures. 

Cadillac came at last to the conclusion that he was 
in a sorry predicament. Sancho, when assailed with 
the cafes of his insular government, never felt the 
tenth part of his embarrassment. So much so, that 
Cadillac deeply regretted that he could not be for ever 
asleep ; because, when awake, he could not but be 
aware that he had spent all the funds he could com- 
mand, and had no more left to consecrate to his favor- 
ite scheme. The sad reality stared him in the face : — 
his purse was empty, and his Canadians were gone. 
But when he was asleep, his dreams beggared the 
wonders of the Arabian Nights. Then Queen Mab 



192 EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE GOVERNOR. 

would drive, four in hand, her tiny cobweb carriage 
through his brain : some merry elf of her court would 
tickle his nose with a feather from a humming-bird's 
tail, and instantly Cadillac would see a thousand fairy 
miners, extracting from the bowels of the earth and 
heaping upon its surface enormous piles of gold and 
silver, having a fantastic resemblance to those Indian 
mounds which, in our days, make such strong appeals to 
our curiosity. Heated by those visions, Cadillac ad- 
dressed himself to Duclos, the king's commissary, for 
more funds to prosecute his researches after the pre- 
cious metals for which he thirsted. Duclos replied that 
the treasury had been pumped dry. '' Borrow," an- 
swered Cadillac. " I cannot," observed Duclos. " Well, 
then !" said the governor very pithily, " what is the use 
of your being a financier, if you cannot raise money 
by borrowing, and what is the use of my being a gover- 
nor, if 1 have no funds to carry on the purposed of my 
government !" 

Low did Cadillac hang his head, in spite of all his 
pride, when he found himself so cramped up in his 
operations. But it would require a more powerful pen 
than mine to describe his indignation, when Duclos, 
the king's commissary, requested him to render his ac-' 
counts for all the funds which had been put in his 
hands, and for all the goods and trinkets which had 
been delivered to him for distribution amono; the In- 



THE GOVERNOIl's TROUBLES INCREASE. 103 

dians. It was long before he could be made to under- 
stand what Vv^as expected from him, so strange and 
unnatural to him did such rt/>7^e/e?z6'/o?i, as Cadillac called 
it, really seem on the part of the commissary. There 
was to him something stupendous in the idea that there 
should ever be the possibility of any such event hap- 
pening, as that of a commissary calling upon him, Ca- 
dillac, the noblest among the noble, him, the governor, 
him, the representative of the Lord's anointed, to fur- 
nish his accounts, just in the same way that such a 
call might have been made upon any ordinary biped of 
the human species. Vf as not such a pretension the 
forerunner of some extraordinary convulsion of nature? 
Be it as it may, Cadillac immediatety wrote to the 
ministry to inform them of this astounding fact, which, 
in his opinion, was a demonstration of the wild notions 
that had crept into the colony. Evidently, the com- 
missary v/as " non compos mentis !" 

The tribulations of Cadillac were destined to pur- 
sue a progressive course, and he was hardly out of one 
difficulty, when another and still another came in quick 
succession, like the ghosts that haunted Macbeth. To 
increase his perplexities, the troops refused to go through 
all the duties of their regular service, on the ground 
that they had nothing to eat but corn, when they were 
entitled to Avheat bread. " A deputation of twenty of 
them," said Cadillac, in his communications to the min- 



194 THE governor's troubles. 

istry, "had the impudence to address me on the sub- 
ject. I immediately sent the spokesman to prison, and 
having convened the officers, I told them that the 
troops in Canada were satisfied with corn for their food, 
that those in Louisiana had, as I had been informed, 
lived on it three years, and that I saw no reason why 
they should not continue. None of the officers dis- 
sented from me, except the commissary, who expressed 
a different opinion, which he supported with the most 
puerile reasoning ; but I chid him and gave him a good 
rapping on the knuckles." 

The spirit of discontent was not confined to the 
soldiery, but had spread through the minds of the colo- 
nists themselves. " They have dared to meet without 
my permission," said he, in another dispatch, " and to 
frame a petition to demand that all nations should be 
permitted to trade freely with the colony, and that the 
inhabitants should have the right to move out of this pro- 
vince, according to their pleasure. Freedom of trade, 
and freedom of action ! — a pretty thing ! What would 
become of Crozat's privileges ? The colonists also insist 
on Crozat's monopoly of trade being confined to the 
wholesale disposition of his goods and merchandise. 
They pretend that he should in no case be allowed to 
retail his goods, and that his gains should be limited to 
fifty per cent on the original cost. Their petition con- 
tains several other demands equally absurd. In order 



HE REFUSES TO EXPEL LOOSE WOMEN. 195 

to cut all these intrigues in the bud, I declared that if 
this petition was ever presented to me, I would hang 
the bearer. A certain fellow, by the name of Mira- 
goin, had taken charge of this precious piece of com- 
position, and had assumed the responsibility of its pre- 
sentation, but on his being informed of my intentions, 
he tore it to pieces." 

One would have thought that Cadillac had supped 
full of annoyances, if not of horrors. But another 
cause of deep mortification, particularly for one so 
pious and so strictly moral as he was, had been kept in 
reserve ; which was, his finding himself under the ne- 
cessity of resisting the solicitations of his friend, the 
Curate de la Vente, and of the other missionaries, who 
insisted upon his expelling out of the colony, two wo- 
men of bad character, that had lately arrived. " I 
have refused to do so," said he, in one of his dispatches, 
"because if I sent away all women of loose habits, 
there would be no females left, and this would not meet 
the views of the government. Besides, (he slyly ob- 
served,) one of these girls occupies the position of a 
servant in the household of the king's commissary, who 
will no doubt reclaim her from her vicious propensities. 
After all, I think that the members of the clergy here 
are perhaps too rigid, and too fond of exacting long 
and repeated confessions. A little more lenity w^ould 
better suit the place and time. Let me add, in conclu- 



196 CADILLAC S DAUGHTER 

sion, that if j'ou do not check the intrigues of Bien- 
ville and of the commissary, who have gained over to 
their side most of the oflicers and of the inhabitants, 
Crozat will soon be obliged to abandon his enterprise." 

We see that there was a deep feeling of animosity 
between Cadillac and Bienville, which threatened to be 
of long continuance. But Cadillac had a daughter, 
and Bienville was a young man, and one of such as are 
framed by nature to win the affections of the fair de- 
scendants of Mother Eve. Whould not a novel-writer 
imagine, under such circumstances, a love story, either 
to soothe the two chiefs into a reconciliation, or to fan 
into more sparkling flames the slow burning fire of 
their inextino-uishable hatred ? Is it not strange that 
what would certainly be devised to increase the inter- 
est of a dramatic plot, did actually turn out to be an 
historical occurrence? But what fact or transaction, 
commonplace as it would appear any where else ac- 
cording to the ordinary run of things, does not, when 
connected with Louisiana, assume a romantic form 
and shape ? 

Thus Cadillac's daughter did really fall in love with 
Bienville. But although her eyes spoke plainly the 
sentiment of her heart, Bienville did not seem to be 
conscious of his good fortune, and kept himself wrapped 
up in respectful blindness. The lady's love, however, 
made itself so apparent, that it at last flashed upon 



FALLS IN LOVE WITH BIENVILLE. 197 

Cadillac's mind. This was indeed a discovery ! How 
he did wince at the idea that one whom he looked 
upon as so inferior to himself in birth and rank, and 
particularly that a Canadian should have won the 
heart of his daughter ! Vehemently and long did he 
remonstrate with his progeny on the unnatural passion 
which she had conceived ; but the love-sick maid 
thought it perfectly natural, and showed a pertinacity 
which greatly shocked her equally obstinate parent. 
Nay, she did what others had done before her, and be- 
came so pale and emaciated that she frightened her fa- 
ther's opposition into an acquiescence with her wishes. 
So much so, that Cadillac brought himself, at last, to 
think that this match would not be so disproportionate 
as he had conceived it at first. Bienville, after all, was 
a gentleman by birth, he was the founder of a colony, 
and had been a governor! — That was something to 
begin with, and he might, in the course of time, rise to 
an eminence which would show him worthy of an alli- 
ance with the illustrious Cadillac family. Besides, Ca- 
dillac was getting old, and had so far had a poor chance 
of acquiring the wealth he had been in quest of so 
long. If he died, what would become of his daughter ? 
These reflections settled the question, and Cadillac 
said to himself, " Bienville shall be my son-in-law." 
Never did he, for one single moment, dream of any 
obstacle. Nothing remained but to encourage Bien- 



198 BIENVILLE DECLINES MARRYING HER. 

ville's fancied timidity, and to lift up the curtain which 
concealed from him the bliss awaiting his unconscious 
innocence. 

One morning, Bienville, much to his astonishment, 
received a friendly invitation to the governor's closet. 
There, the great man proffered to his subordinate the 
olive branch of reconciliatian, and by slow degrees, 
gave him to understand that the god Hymen might 
seal the bond of their amity. Bienville received this 
communication with low and reverential obeisance. 
Much delighted did he show himself at this offer of 
reconcihation, and much honored with the prospect, 
however distant, of an alliance so far beyond his hum- 
ble aspirations ; but, at the same time, he plainly inti- 
mated to Cadillac his firm determination, for reasons 
best known to himself, for ever to undergo the mortifi- 
cations of celibacy ! So unexpected this answer was, 
that Cadillac reeled in his seat, as if he had been 
stunned by a sudden blow. There he stood in a 
trance, with his mouth gaping wide, with his eyes 
starting from their sockets, and with dilating nostrils, 
while Bienville and the very walls, and every thing 
that was in the room, seemed to spin and whirl madly 
around him, with electric rapidity. Now, indeed, he 
had known the worst, fate had entered the lists, and 
Birnam ivood had come to Dunsinane I What ! his 
daughter, a Cadillac, to be refused by a Canadian ad- 



BIENVILLE ORDERED TO PUNISH THE NATCHEZ. 199 

venturer ! No doubt a screw had broken loose in the 
machinery of the universe, and our whole w^orld was 
to be flung back into the womb of old chaos again ! 
Before Cadillac had recovered from this paroxysm, 
Bienville had made his exit, and had gone to tell the 
anecdote to some confidential friends. The fact which 
I have related, is thus briefly mentioned by Bienville 
in one of his dispatches : " I can assure your excellency 
that the cause of Cadillac's enmity to me, is my having 
refused to marry his daughter." 

Bienville did not wait long to receive a signal proof 
of Cadillac's vindictive spirit, and he anticipated a mani- 
festation of it, when summoned a second time to ap- 
pear before his chief. Nor was he deceived ; and 
when he was ushered into Cadillac's presence, that 
dignitary's countenance, which looked more than 
usually solemn and stern, indicated that he had ma- 
tured his revenge for the insult he had undergone. 
" Sir," said he to Bienville, " I have received secret 
information that four Canadians, on their way to Illi- 
nois, have been massacred by the Natchez. You must 
punish the murderers, and build a fort on the territory 
of that perfidious nation, to keep it in check. Take 
Richebourg's company of thirty-four men, fifteen 
sailors to man your boats, and proceed to execute my 
commands." " What !" exclaimed Bienville, " do you 
really intend to send me with thirty-four men to en- 



200 BIENVILLE ORDERED TO PUNISH THE NATCHEZ. 

counter a hostile tribe that numbers eight hundred 
warriors !" " A truce to your observations," continued 
Cadillac, with a bitter smile, " to hear must be to obey. 
I cannot dispose of a greater force. I have myself 
good grounds to expect being attacked by the neigh- 
boring nations, who, as I am informed, have entered 
into a conspiracy against us. Yet the offence com- 
mitted by the Natchez must be instantly requited, or 
they would be emboldened into the perpetration of 
worse outrages. Go, then, with such means as I can 
give ; in case of success, your merit will be greater, 
but if you should meet with any reverse, you will be 
at no loss for an excuse, and all the responsibility shall 
be mine. Besides, you and Richebourg have such tal- 
ents and courage as will easily extricate you out of 
any difficulty. You are a very Hercules, and he is a 
perfect Theseus, in licentious propensities, at least. 
What is the mission I send you upon, compared with 
the twelve labors of the mythological hero, who, like 
you on this occasion, was sent forth to redress wrongs 
and punish crimes !" To the studied sarcasm of this 
set speech, Bienville made no answer. In those days 
of adventurous and almost mad exploits in America, 
in an age when the disciplinarian rules of hierarchy 
commanded such respect and obedience, none, without 
disgrace, could have questioned the word of his supe- 
rior, when that word was to brave danger, however 



CHARACTER OF RICHEBOURG. 201 

foolish and reckless this exercise of authority might 
be. Moreover, Bienville savv^ that his ruin had been 
deliberately planned, and that remonstrance was use- 
less. Therefore, signifying mute assent to Cadillac's 
wishes, he v/ithdrew to betake himself to the execu- 
tion of the orders which he had received, and to ad- 
vise with Richebourg on the best means of defeating 
Cadillac's malicious designs. 

Richebourg was a brave officer, full of intelligence 
and of cool daring, whose career in Europe, as a mili- 
tary man, had been interrupted by several duels, which 
at last had forced him to leave his country. He was 
so amiable, so obliging, so exceedingly conciliatory, 
that it was difficult for one who did not know a cer- 
tain eccentric peculiarity of his mind, to understand 
how he had come to have so many quarrels. Who 
more gifted than he with suavity of manners and the 
art of pleasing ? He never was fretted by contradic- 
tion, and ever smiled at opposition. Popular among 
men, a favorite with women, he never allowed words 
of blame to fail from his lips, but on the contrary was 
remarkable for the good nature of his remarks on all 
occasions except one. How could this milk of hu- 
man kindness, whioh was the dominant element of his 
disposition, be suddenly soured into offensive acidity, 
or turned into gall? It was passing strange! But 
it was nevertheless true, that, for some cause which 

10 



202 CHARACTER OF RICHEBOURG. 

he never explained, he had conceived the most inveter- 
ate hatred for all that smacked of philanthropy. There 
suddenly sprung up in his heart a sort of diseased 
aversion for the man, who, in his presence, either vv^ent 
by the name of philanthropist, or expressed sentiments 
v^^hich gave him a claim to that character. Riche- 
bourg, on such occasions, would listen with exemplary 
composure, and, treasuring up in his memory every 
philanthropic declaration that fell from the lips of the 
speaker, he would, as soon as he found the opportunity, 
put him to the test, as to whether his practice corres- 
ponded with his theory. Alas ! few stood the test, and 
then Richebourg was not sparing of the words, hum- 
hug, impostor, and hypocrite. What was the conse- 
quence ? A quarrel ; and in variably the philanthropist 
was run through. On this inexplicable whim, on this 
Quixotic tilting with all pretenders to philanthropy, 
Richebourg's friends frequently remonstrated, but 
found him intractable. No answer would be given to 
their observations, but he kept steadily on the same 
course of action. At last it became evident to them, 
that it was an incurable mania, a crotchet which had 
got into his brain and was incapable of eradication. 
With this imperfection they put up with good humor, 
on account of his many noble qualities, and he became 
generally known and designated as the philanthropist 
hater. His companions in arms, who loved him— 



CHARACTER OF RICHEBOURG. 203 

although with some of them he had actually fought 
because, either in earnest or in jest, they had hoisted 
the red flag that was sure to rouse the bull — had, in a 
joking manner, convened one day all the oflicers and 
inhabitants of Mobile and Massacre Island, and had 
passed, with mock gravity, a resolution, which was 
however seriously adhered to, and in which they de- 
clared that, for the future, no one would allow himself, 
either directly or indirectly, to be a philanthropist 
within a radius of three miles of Richebourg. This 
secured peace; but woe to the imprudent or unin- 
formed stranger who trespassed on that sacred ground, 
with the slightest visible sign of the heresy which the 
fanatic Richebourg held in utter abomination ! 

Such was the officer who was to share with Bien- 
ville the dangers of the expedition, which was subse- 
quently known in the annals of Louisiana, as the first 
Natchez war. 

On the 24th of April, 1716, Bienville, with the small 
force which had been allotted to him, encamped on an 
island, situated in the Mississippi, opposite the village 
of the Tunicas, at the distance of about eighteen leagues 
from the Natchez. He imm'^diately sent a Tunica to 
convey to the Natchez the intelligence that he was 
coming to establish a factory among them, to trade in 
furs, and to supply them, in exchange, with all the Eu- 
ropean merchandise they might want. Bienville had 



204 Bienville's interview 

been informed that the Natchez beheved that the late 
murders they had committed on the persons of some 
French traders, had not been discovered, and he resolved 
to avail himself of this circumstance to accomplish his 
purposes without the risk of a collision. He aiFected, 
therefore, to have come on the most friendly errand, 
and gave out that he had encamped on the island merely 
to afford rest to his men, and to minister to the wants 
of some that were sick. He nevertheless took the pre- 
caution to have an intrenchment made with stakes or 
posts, within which he erected three log-houses. One 
he intended as a storehouse for his provisions and am- 
munition, the other as a guard-house, and the third for 
a prison. 

On the 27th, three Natchez came, under the osten- 
sible purpose of complimenting Bienville, on the part of 
their tribe, but in reality to act as spies, and they ten- 
dered to him the calumet, that mystic pipe which the 
Indians use for fumigation, as the ensign of peace. 
Bienville refused to smoke with them, and pretended 
to consider himself as not treated with the respect to 
which he was entitled, because their chiefs had not 
come in person, to greet* m, the chief of the French. 
" I see," said he, " that your people are not pleased with 
the idea of my forming a settlement on their territory, 
for trading with them. Otherwise they would have 
expressed their satisfaction in a more becoming man- 



WITH THE NATCHEZ EMISSARIES. 205 

ner. Be it so. If the Natchez are so thankless for 
what I meant to be a favor, I will alter my determina- 
tion, and give the preference to the Tunicas, who have 
always shown themselves such great friends to the 
French." 

After this speech, Bienville ordered the three envoys 
to be well feasted and treated with kindness. The 
next day they returned to their villages, with a French- 
man sent by Bienville, and whose mission was to ad- 
dress a formal invitation to the Natchez chiefs to a 
conference on the Tunicas Island. On this occasion, 
the Natchez felt greatly embarrassed, and many con- 
sultations were had on the best course to be pursued. 
Some were of opinion that it would be imprudent for 
their chiefs to put themselves in the power of the French, 
who might have received information of what had lately 
occurred, and who might have come, under the garb 
of peace, to entrap their great men and wreak ven- 
geance upon them. Others maintained that, from the 
circumstance of the French having come in such small 
number, it was evident that they were ignorant of the 
death of their countrymen, and did not intend to act 
as foes. " That inference," they said, " was confirmed 
by the information which had been carefully collected 
by their spies. They had no pretext to treat the French 
with indignity, and therefore it was proper for the chiefs 
of their tribe to go to meet and escort to their villages 



206 THE CHlEFri OF THE NATCHEZ 

the wise and valiant pale-faced chief, who had already 
visited them on preceding occasions. A different course 
might excite suspicion, and investigation might lead to 
the discovery of what it was desirable to conceal. At 
any rate, the chiefs, by refusing to accept Bienville's 
invitation, would certainly incur his displeasure, and he 
might, by forming a trading establishment at the Tuni- 
cas, enrich that rival nation, to the detriment of the 
Natchez." These arguments prevailed, and in an evil 
hour for the Indian chiefs, their visit to Bienville's camp 
was resolved on. 

On the very day that Bienville had dismissed the 
three Indian envoys, he had dispatched one of his most 
skilful Canadian boatmen, to ascend the river, with the 
utmost secrecy, during the night, and proceeding to a 
certain distance beyond and above the villages of the 
Natchez, to give notice to the French, who might her 
coming down the river, of the danger that threatened 
them from the Natchez. That man was provided with 
a score of parchment rolls, which he was to append to 
trees in places where they were likely to meet the eyes 
of those descending the Mississippi, and which bore this 
inscription : " The Natchez have declared war against 
the French, and M. de Bienville is encamped at the 
unicas. 
On the 8th of May, at 10 o'clock in the morning, 
the Indian chiefs were seen coming, with great state, in 



VISIT BIENVILLE. 207 

lour pirogues. The chiefs were seated under parasols, 
and were accompanied by twelve men, swimming. At 
that sight, Bienville ordered half of his men to keep 
themselves well armed and concealed in the guard- 
house, but ready for sudden action. The other half he 
instructed to appear without any weapons, to assist the 
Indians in landing, and to take charge of all their war 
apparel, as it were to relieve them from an encumbrance, 
and under the pretext that it would be improper to go 
in such a guise to the awaiting feast and carousal. He 
further commanded that eight of the principal chiefs, 
whom he named, should be introduced into his tent, 
and the rest be kept outside until his pleasure was made 
known. All this was carried into execution without 
the slightest difficulty. The chiefs entered the tent, 
singing and dancing, and presented the calumet to Bien- 
ville. But he waved it off with contempt, and sternly 
told them that, before drawing one whiff from the 
smoking pipe, he desired to know what they had to say, 
and that he was willing to listen to their harangue. At 
this unexpected treatment, the chiefs were highly dis- 
concerted : they went out of the tent in dismay, and 
seemed, with great ceremony, to be offering their calu- 
met to the sun. Their great priest, with extended arms, 
made a solemn appeal to that planet, supplicating the 
god to pour his rays into the heart of the pale-faced 
chief, to dispel the clouds which had there accumulated, 



208 BIENVILLE ARRESTS THE 

and had prevented him from seeing his way and doing 
justice to the feehngs of his red friends. After all this 
religious display, they returned to the tent, and again 
tendered their calumet to Bienville, who, tired of all 
these proceedings, thought proper at once to take the 
bull by the horns and to come out with his charges. 
" Before I receive your token of amity," said he ab- 
ruptly, " and pledge my faith in return, tell me what 
satisfaction you offer for the death of the Frenchmen 
you have murdered." The Indians, who had really 
thought that Bienville knew nothing of that crime, ap- 
peared to be struck aghast by this direct and sudden 
apostrophe : they hung down their heads and answered 
not. " Let them be carried to the prison prepared for 
them," exclaimed Bienville impatiently, " and let them 
be secured with chains, stocks, and fetters." 

On this demonstration of hostility, out came the In- 
dians with their death-songs, which, much to the an- 
noyance of the French, they kept repeating the whole 
day : — they refused all food, and appeared determined 
to meet their expected doom whh the dauntless energy 
so common in that race of men. Towards evening, 
Bienville sent for the great chief, called " The Great 
Sun," and for tw^o of his brothers, w^hose names were, 
" The Stung Serpent " and " The Little Sun." They 
were the three most influential rulers of the nation. 
Bienville thus addressed them : " I know that it was 



NATCHEZ CHIEFS. 209 

not by your order, or with your consent, that the 
French, whose death I come to avenge, have been 
murdered. Therefore, your hves are safe, but I want 
the heads of the murderers, and of the chiefs who or- 
dered or sanctioned the deed. I will not be satisfied 
with their scalps : — I wish for the very heads, in order 
that I may be sure that deceit has not been practised. 
This whole night I give you for consultation on the 
best mode of atfording me satisfaction. If you refuse, 
woe to your tribe ! You know the influence which I 
have over all the Indian nations of this country. They 
respect, love and trust me, because from the day, sev- 
enteen summers ago, when I appeared among them, to 
the present hour, I have alw^ays been just and upright. 
You know that if I raise my little finger against you, 
and give one single war-whoop, the father of rivers 
will hear, and will carry it, up and down stream, to all 
his tributaries. The woods themselves will prick up 
their leafy ears, from the big salt lake, south, to the 
fresh water lakes at the north, and raising their mighty 
voice, as when struggling with the hurricane, they will 
summon from the four quarters of the horizon, the 
children of the forests, who will crush you with their 
united and overwhelming powers. 

" You know that I do not boast, and that those red 
allies will gladly march against you, and destroy the 
eight beautiful villages of which you are so proud, 

10* 



210 SPEECH OF BIENVILLE 

without my risking the life of one single Frenchman. 
Do you not remember that, in 1704, the Tchioumaqui 
killed a missionary and three other Frenchmen ? They 
refused to deliver the murderers to me, — my wrath 
was kindled, and I said to the neighboring Indian na- 
tions : ' Bienville hates the Tchioumaqui, and he who 
kills a Tchioumaqui, is Bienville's friend.' When I 
passed this sentence upon them, you know that their 
tribe was composed of three hundred families. A few 
months elapsed, and they were reduced to eighty ! they 
sued for peace at last, yielded to my demands, and it 
was only then that the tomahawk, the arrow and the 
rifle ceased to drink their blood. Justice was satisfied : 
— and has Bienville's justice a smaller foot and a 
slower gait when it stalks abroad in the pursuit of the 
white man who has wronged the red man ? No ! In 
1702, two Pascagoulas were killed by a Frenchman. 
Blood fo7^ blood, I said, and the guilty one, although he 
was one of my people, no longer lived. Thus, what I 
have exacted from the Indians, I have rendered unto 
them. Thus have I behaved, and thus have I deserved 
the reputation which I enjoy in the wigwams of the 
red men, because I never deviated from the straight 
path of honesty. Hence I am called by them the 
arrow of uprightness and the tomahawk of justice. 

" Measure for measure ! — this is my rule. When 
the Indians have invoked my arbitration between 



TO THE CHIEFS. 211 

tiiemselves, they have been invariably subject to this 
same rule. Thus, in 1703, two Taouachas having killed 
a Chickasaw, I obliged their chiefs to put them to death. 
Blood will have hloocl. When the Choctaws murdered 
two Chactioumans in 1715, I said, tooth f 01^ tooth, lives 
for lives, and the satisfaction was granted. In 1707, 
the Mobilians, by my order, carried to the Taouachas, 
the head of one of their tribe in expiation of an of- 
fence of a similar nature ; and in 1709, the Pascagou- 
las having assassinated a Mobiiian, ' an eye for an eye' 
was my award, and he who was found guilty, forfeited 
his life. The Indians have always recognized the 
equity of this law, and have complied with it, not only 
between themselves, but between them and the French. 
In 1703, the Coiras made no difficulty to put to death 
four of their warriors, who had murdered a missionary 
and two other Frenchmen. I could quote many other 
instances, — but the cause of truth does not require 
long speeches, and few words will convince an honest 
heart. I have done. I do not believe that you will 
refuse to abide by the law and custom which has al- 
ways existed among the Indians, and between them 
and the French. There would be iniquity and dan- 
ger in the breach of that law : honor, justice, peace 
and safety lie in its observance. Your white brother 
waits for an answer." 

The Indians listened to this speech with profound 



212 THE CHIEFS AGEEE TO 

attention, but made no reply, and Bienville ordered 
them to be remanded to prison. The next morning, 
at daybreak, they requested to speak to Bienville, and 
they were conducted to his presence. The Indian, 
who was the first of the chiefs by rank, addressed him 
in these terms : " The voice of the Great Spirit made 
itself heard within us last night. We have listened to 
his dictate, and we come to give our white brother what- 
ever satisfaction he desires. But we wish him to ob- 
serve that we, the great chiefs, being all prisoners, 
there is no man left behind, who has the power to 
accomplish the mission of bringing the heads thou de- 
mandest. Let therefore the Stung Serpent be liberated, 
and thy will shall be done." To this request, Bienville 
refused his assent, because he knew the energy of that 
chief, and doubted his intentions ; but he consented 
that Little Sun should go in his brother's place. 

Five days had elapsed, when Little Sun returned, 
and brought three heads. After a careful examina- 
tion of their features, Bienville sent again for all the 
chiefs, and ordering one of the heads to be flung at 
their feet ; " The eye of the white chief," said he, 
" sees clear through the fog of your duplicity, and his 
heart is full of sorrow at your conduct. This is not 
the head of the guilty, but of the innocent who has 
died for the guilty. This is not the head of Oyelape, 
he whom ye call the Chief of the White ClaijJ' 



PUNISH THE MURDERERS. 213 

" True," answered the Indians, " we do not deny thy 
word, but Oyelape has fled, and his brother was killed 
in his place." " If even it be so," observed Bienville, 
" this substitution cannot be accepted." 

The next day, the 15th of May, Bienville allowed 
two other chiefs and the great priest to depart for 
their villages, to try if they would not be more suc- 
cessful than the Little Sun. They returned on the 
25th, and informed Bienville that they could not dis- 
cover the place of Oyelape's concealment, but they 
brought along with them some slaves and part of the 
goods which had belonged to the murdered French- 
men. In the meantime, twenty-two Frenchmen and 
Canadians who were coming down the river in sepa- 
rate detachments, having seen the parchment signs 
posted up along its banks, by the order of Bienville, 
had given a wide berth to the side occupied by the 
Natchez, and using proper precaution, had arrived 
safely at Bienville's camp. Thus he found himself at 
the head of seventy-one men, well armed, of tried har- 
dihood, and used to Indian warfare. This was a for- 
tunate accession to his forces ; for the Indians had 
almost determined to make, in their canoes, a night at- 
tack upon the island, and to rescue their chiefs in the 
attempt. The Tunicas had-given to Bienville notice 
of what was brewing among the Natchez, and oflered 
forty of their best warriors to assist the French in the 



214 THE MURDERERS ARE 

defence of the island. But Bienville, who, although 
he affected to put great trust in them, feared that they 
might prove traitors, refused, with apparent thankful- 
ness, their proffered assistance, and replied that, with 
his small force, he could make the island good against 
the whole tribe of the Natchez. This manifestation 
of confidence in his strength, and the timely arrival of 
the twenty-two white men, with some Illinois, no 
doubt prevented the Natchez from carrying their pro- 
ject into execution. It is probable that they were 
also deterred by the consideration, that the French, if 
hard pressed, w^ould put their prisoners to death. 

The Great Sun, the Stung Serpent, and the Little 
Sun, who, perhaps, had so far delayed to make any 
confession, because they entertained the expectation of 
being rescued, having at last given up this hope, came 
out with a frank avowal. They maintained that they 
never had any previous knowledge of the intended 
murder of the French, and declared that four of the 
assassins were among Bienville's prisoners. One of 
them was called the Chief of the Beard ; the other was 
named Alahoflechia, the Chief of the Walnut Village ; 
the two others were ordinary warriors. They affirmed 
that these were the only guilty ones, with the excep- 
tion of Oyelape, the Chief of the White Clay, who 
had fled. " The Great Spirit," they said, " has blinded 
them, has turned their wits inside out, and they have, 



SURRENDERED TO BIENVILLE. 215 

of their own accord, delivered themselves into thy 
hands. It is fortunate that it be so ; otherwise, the 
two warriors might have fled, and the two chiefs are 
such favorites with the nation, that they would have 
successfully resisted our demand for their heads, and 
to give thee satisfaction would have been impossible. 
As it is, it shows that our Great Spirit has shaken 
hands with the God of the Cross, and has passed on 
the side of our white brother." 

It was then the 1st of June, and the river which 
was rising daily, had overflowed the island, one foot 
deep, and made the quarters of the French more than 
uncomfortable. Humidity, combined with heat, had 
engendered disease, and half of Bienville's men were 
stretched on the couch of sickness. It was then high 
time for him to put an end to the situation he was in. 
Summoning to his presence all his prisoners, with the 
exception of the four men who had been designated 
as the assassins, he said to them : " Your people after 
having invited my people to trade with them, suddenly 
violated the laws of hospitality, and treacherously 
murdered four Frenchmen who were their guests. 
They thought the atrocious deed would remain un- 
known, and that they would quietly enjoy their blood- 
stained plunder. But the souls of the dead spoke to 
me, and I came, and I invited you to my camp, as you 
had invited the French to your villages, and you be- 



216 BIENVILLE S TREATY. 

came my guests, as they had been yom's, and I rose 
upon you, as you rose upon them. Measure for mea- 
sure. But I shall not butcher you, as you butchered 
them. You killed the innocent and the confiding — I 
shall kill only the treacherous and the guilty. Who 
can say that this is not justice ? Now, let us bury the 
hatchet of war. I am satisfied with and believe your 
last declarations. Hear, then, on what conditions I 
consent to release you and grant you peace. You 
will swear to put to death, as soon as possible, Oye- 
lape, the Chief of the White Clay, and you will bring 
his head to the French officer whom I shall station 
among you. You will consent also, to my putting to 
death the two chiefs and the two warriors who are in 
my hands. Y^ou will restore every object that you 
may ever have taken from the French ; for w^liat has 
been lost or wasted, you will force your people to pay 
the equivalent in furs and provisions. You will oblige 
them to cut two thousand five hundred stakes of aca- 
cia wood, thirteen feet long by a diameter of ten 
inches, and to convey the whole to the bank of the 
Mississippi, at such a spot as it will please the French 
to erect a fort ; and furthermore, you will bind your- 
selves to furnish us, as a covering for our buildings, 
with the barks of three thousand trees. This is to be 
expected before the first day of July ; and above all, 
you will also swear, never, and under no pretext 



ITS KATIFICATION BY THE NATCHEZ. 217 

or color whatever, to entertain the shghtest com- 
mercial or friendly relation^ with the British, whom 
you know to be the eternal enemies of the French." 

The chiefs assented to these terms, swore by the 
sun that they would, for the future, be the best friends 
of the French, and urged Bienville to smoke the pipe 
of peace. Bienville knev/ well what to think of these 
hollow protestations, but affected to believe in the re- 
turn of the Natchez to the sentiments they professed. 
He refused, however, to smoke, because he considered 
that the treaty of peace would not be valid, until rati- 
fied in a meeting of the whole nation, but he dismissed 
all the Indians, with the exception of the Stung Ser- 
pent, the Little Sun. and the four criminals who were 
doomed to death. With the departing Indians, he sent 
Aid-major Pailloux, accompanied by three soldiers, to 
be present at the ratification of the treaty. On the 
7th of June, nine old men came, with great ceremony 
and pomp, to give to Bienville official information of 
the expected ratification. 

On the 12th, the two Indian chiefs w^ere put to 
death, the two warriors having already met their fate 
on the 9th. When the Chief of the Beard saw that 
the moment had come for the execution of the sen- 
tence passed upon him, he ceased his death-song which 
he had been chanting for some time, and took up a 
sort of war-song, whilst he looked fiercely at the 



218 WAR SONG OF THE 

threatening muskets of the French, and at the few 
Indians of his tribe wdiom Bienville had detained to 
witness the death of the culprit. 



lUar 6onc\. 



" Let tliere be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! A child 
is born to them of the race of their suns. A boy is born with 
beard on his chin ! The prodigy still works on from genera- 
tion to generation." So sang the warriors of my tribe when 
I sprung from my mother's womb, and the shrill cry of the 
eagle in the heavens was heard in joyous response. Hardly 
fifteen summers had passed over my head, when long and 
glossy my beard had grown. I looked round, and I saw that 
I was the only red man that had this awful mark on his face, 
and I interrogated my mother, and she said : 

Son of the Chiefs of the Beard, 
Thou shalt know this mystery, 
In which thy curious eye wishes to pry, 
When thy beard from black becomes red. 

II. 

Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! A hunter 
is born to them, a hunter of the race of their suns. Ask of 
the bears, of the buffaloes, of the tigers, and of the swift- 
footed deer, whose arrows they fear most. They tremble 



CHIEF OF THE liEAllD. 219 

and cower when the footstep of tlie hunter with beard on his 
chin is heard on the heath. But I was born too with brains 
in my head, as well as beard on my chin, and I pondered on 
my mother's words. One day, when a leopard, whom I 
strangled, had torn my breast, I painted my beard with my 
own blood, and I stood smiling before her. She said nothing, 
but her eye gleamed with wild delight, and she took me to 
the temple, where, standing by the sacred fire, she thus sang 
to me : 

Son of the Chiefs of the Beard, 

Thou shalt know the mystery. 

Since, true to thy nature, with thy own blood. 

Thy black beard thou hast turned to red. 

III. 

Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! for a wit- 
ted chief, worthy of the race of their suns, has been born to 
them, in thee, my son ; a noble chief, with beard on his chin ! 
Listen to the explanation of that prodigy. Li days of old, a 
Natchez maid, of the race of their suns, was on a visit to the 
Mobilians. There, she soon loved the youthful chief of that 
nation, and her wedding day was nigh, when there came from 
the big salt lake, south, a host of bearded men, who sacked 
the town, slew the red chief with their thunder, and one of 
those accursed evil spirits used violence to the maid, when 
her lover's corpse was hardly cold in death. She found, in 
sorrow, her way back to the Natchez hills, where she became 
a mother ; and lo ! the boy had beard on his chin ! and when 



220 WAR SONG OF THE 

he grew to understand his mother's words, she whispered in 
his ear : 

Son of the Chiefs of the Beard, 

Born from a bloody day, 

Bloody be thy hand, bloody be thy life, 

Until thy black beard with blood becomes red. 

IV. 
Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! In my 
first ancestor, a long line of the best of hunters, of chiefs, and 
of warriors, of the race of their suns, had been born to them, 
with beard on their chin ! What chase was ever unsuccess- 
ful, when over it they presided ? When they spoke in the 
council of the wise men of the nation, did it not always turn 
out that their advice, whether adopted or rejected, was the 
best in the end ? In what battle were they ever defeated ? 
When were they knovrn to be worn out with fatigue, hard- 
ships, hunger or thirst, heat or cold, either on land or on 
water ? Who ever could stem, as they, the rushing current 
of the father of rivers ? Who can count the number of scalps 
which they brought from distant expeditions ? Their names 
have always been famous in the wigwams of all the red na- 
tions. They have struck terror into the boldest breasts of 
the enemies of the Natchez ; and mothers, when their sons 
paint their bodies in the colors of war, say to them : 

Fight where and with wliom yon please, 

But beware, oh ! beware of the Chiefs of the Beard ! 

Give way to them, as you would to death, 

Or their black beards with vour blood will be rod ! 



CHIEF OF THE BEARD. 221 



Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! When 
the first Chief of the Beard first trimmed the sacred fire in 
the temple, a voice was heard, which said, " As long as there 
lives a chief, of the race of the suns, with beard on his chin, 
no evil can happen to the Natchez nation ; but if the white 
race should ever resume the blood which it gave, in a bloody 
day, woe, three times woe to the Natchez ! of them nothing 
will remain but the shadow of a aame !" Thus spoke the 
invisible prophet. Years rolled on, j^ears thick on years, and 
none of the accursed white faces were seen ! But they ap- 
peared at last, wrapped up in their pale skins, like shrouds 
of the dead • and the father of my father, wliom tradition had 
taught to guard against the predicted danger, slew two of the 
hated strangers ; and my father, in his turn, killed four ! 

Praise be to the Chiefs of the Beard ! 
Who knew how to avenge their old ancestral injury ! 
When with the sweet blood of a white foe, 
Their black beard they proudly painted red. 

VI. 

Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez ! When J. 
saw the glorious light of day, there was born to them a great 
warrior, of the race of their suns, a warrior and a chief with 
beard on his chin ! The pledge of protection, of safety, and 
of glory stood embodied in me. When I shouted my first 
war-whoop, the oMd hooted and smelt the ghosts of my ene- 



222 WAR SONG OF THE CHIEF OF THE BEARD. 

mies ! — the wolves howled, and the carrion vultures shrieked 
with joy, for they knew their food was coming ! — and I fed 
them with Chickasaw flesh, with Choctaw flesh, until they 
were gorged with the flesh of the red men ! A kind master 
and purveyor I was to them, the poor dumb creatures that I 
loved ! But lately, I have given them more dainty food. I 
boast of having done better than my father : five Frenchmen 
have I killed, and my only regret at dying, is, that it ^vi\\ 
prevent my killing more ! 

Ha ! ha ! ha ! that was ga*ne worthy of the Chief of the Beard ! 

How lightly he danced ! ho ! ho ! ho ! 

How gladly he shouted ! ha ! ha ! ha ! 

Each time with French blood, his black beard became red ! 



Let sorrow be in the hearts of the Natchez ! The great 
hunter is no more ! The wise chief is going to meet his 
forefathers : the indomitable warrior will no longer raise his 
hatchet in the defence of the children of the sun. O burn- 
ing shame ! — he was betrayed by his brother chiefs, who sold 
his blood. If they had followed his advice, they would have 
united with the Choctaws, with the Chickasaws, and all the other 
red nations, and they would have slain all the French dogs 
that came prowling and stealing over the beautiful face of 
our country. But there was too much of the woman in their 
cowardly hearts. Well and good ! Let the will of fote be 
accomplished ! The white race will soon resume the blood 
which they gave, and then the glory and the very existence 



HIS EXECUTION. 223 

of the Natchez nation will have departed forever, with the 
Chief of the Beard ; for I am the last of my race, and my 
blood flows in no other human veins. O Natchez ! Natchez ! 
remember the prophet's voice ! I am content to die, for I 
leave behind me none but the doomed, and I go to revel with 
my brave ancestors ! 

They will recognize their son in the Chief of the Beard ; 
They will welcome him to their glorious homestead, 
When they see so many scalps at his girdle, 
And his black beard w^ith French blood painted red ! 

He ceased, and stood up before the admiring eyes 
of the French, with a look of exulting defiance, and 
with his fine athletic person, measuring seven feet high, 
and seemingly dilated into more gigantic proportions 
by the excitement which convulsed his soul. The 
French officer who commanded the platoon of soldiers, 
chosen on this occasion to fulfil a melancholy duty, 
gave the word, ''fire !" and the Chief of the Beard 
passed into another world. 

On the 3rd of August, the fortifications ordered by 
Bienville, had been completed, the Indians having 
strictly complied with the terms of the treaty. They 
did more : they not only furnished all the materials 
which had been stipulated, but labored with great zeal 
in cutting ditches, in raising the parapets and bastions 
of the fort, and in constructing the buildings required 



224 BIE.VVILLE ERECTS FORT ROSALIE. 

by the French. Stung Serpent even sent one hundred 
and fifty men to the French, to transport all their bag- 
gage, ammunition and provisions, from the Tunicas to' 
the Natchez. On the 25th of August, Bienville found 
himself comfortably and securely established in the 
strong position which he had, in such a wily manner, 
obtained, as we know, from the Natchez. However, 
they appeared to have dropped all resentment at the 
mode by which Bienville had got such advantages over 
them, and they behaved as if they were extremely de- 
sirous to impress upon him the belief that they were 
delighted at his forming a settlement among them. 
Five or six hundred men of that tribe, accompanied 
by three hundred women, came one day to dance under 
the walls of the fort, as a manifestation of their joy at 
the termination of their quarrel with the French, and 
at the determination of the pale faces to establish them- 
selves among their red friends. Bienville invited the 
chiefs to come into the fort, and treated them with due 
honors. It is evident that the Indians wished to pro- 
pitiate the strangers whom they could not shake off, 
and whom, from instinct alone, they must have re- 
garded as their most dangerous enemies, and as the fu- 
ture cause of their ultimate ruin, But that they felt 
any satisfaction at the intrusion of these new com.ers, 
the knowledge of human nature forbids to believe. 
Two distinct and antagonistical races had met front to 



CADILLAC SUPERSEDED. 225 

front, and at the very moment they appeared to em- 
brace in amity, and joined in the carousing feast, the 
one was secretly meditating subjugation, and the other, 
resistance and revenge. 

On the 28th of August, seeing no signs of hostility 
from the Indians, Bienville left Aid-major Pailloux in 
command of the new fort, which was called " Rosalie,'* 
and departed for Mobile, where he arrived on the 4th 
of October, with the satisfaction of having accom- 
plished the difficult task with which he had been 
charged. This was one cause of triumph over his ad- 
versary, Cadillac, but he there found another cause of 
gratulation in a letter to him from the minister of the 
marine department, in which he was instructed to re- 
sume the government of the colony, in the absence of 
De I'Epinay, appointed to succeed Cadillac. This was 
fortunate for Bienville, for he found his quondam supe- 
rior in a towering rage at his success, and at what he 
called Bienville's execrable perfidy in taking forcible 
possession of the Indian chiefs, as he did. But Bien- 
ville contented himself with laughing at his impotent 
vituperation. 

Before closing with Cadillac's administration, I 
shall briefly relate some other curious incidents, with 
which it was signalized. In 1715, a man by the name 
of Dutigne, who loved a joke, wishing to amuse him- 
self with Cadillac's inordinate passion for the discovery 

11 



226 ANECDOTES OF CADILLAC. 

of n;iies, exhibited to him some pieces of ore, which 
<:ontained certain proportions of silver, and persuaded 
him that they had been found in the neighborhood of 
the Kaskaskias. This was enough to fire Cadillac's 
overheated imagination. Anticipating the realization 
of all his dreams, he immediately set oft^for the Illinois, 
where, much to his mortification, he learned that he 
had been imposed upon by Dutigne, to whom the de- 
ceptive pieces of ore had been given by a Mexican, 
who had brought them from his country. After an 
absence of eight months, spent in fruitless researches, 
he returned to Mobile, w^here he found himself the 
laughing-stock of the community. This was not calcu- 
lated to soothe his mind, and in one of his dispatches, 
in which he gave an account of the colony, he said : 

" There are as many governors here as there are 
officers. Every one of them would like to perform his 
duties according to his own interpretation. As to the 
superior council of this province, allow me to represent 
to your grace, that its assuming the authority to modify 
his Majesty's orders, is fraught with injury to the royal 
interest, and precludes the possibility of establishing 
here a good government, because the language of its 
members smacks more of the independence of repub-. 
licans than of the subordination of loyal subjects. ' / 
will or will not,' — ' it shall or shall not he,' are words 
of daily utternnce in their mouths. A governor must 



ORIGIN OF THE QUARREL WITH THE NATCHEZ. 227 

be clothed with power superior to any other, in order 
that he may act with effect, and cause to be executed, 
with prompt exactitude, the commands of his Majesty, 
instead of his being checked by any controlHng or op- 
posing influence ; which is always the case, when he is 
forced to consult subaltern officers, who are swayed 
entirely by their own interest, and care very little for 
the service of the king, or for the prosperity of the 
colony." These were stones flung at Bienville, at the 
commissary Duclos, and at the superior council, who 
threw obstacles in his way, and interfered with the ex- 
ercise of the absolute power which he thought that he 
possessed, because, as governor, he considered himself 
to be an emanation from, and a representation of the 
king ! 

On his way up the river to search for gold and 
silver, Cadillac stopped at Natchez. As soon as he 
was known to approach, the Indian chiefs came out in 
barbaric state to meet him, and, according to their 
usages, presented to him their calumet, in token of 
peace and amity. Highly incensed Cadillac was at 
the presumption of the savages, in supposing that he 
would contaminate his patrician lips with the contact 
of their vile pipe. He accordingly treated the poor 
Indians very little better than he would uncouth ani- 
mals, thrusting themselves into his presence. His 
having departed without having consented to smoke 



228 CHOCTAW CHIEF ASSASSINATED. 

with them, had impressed the Natchez, who could not 
understand the nature of his pride, with the idea that 
he meditated war upon their tribe. Then, they resolv- 
ed to anticipate the expected blow, and they secretly 
massacred some Frenchmen who happened to be in 
their villages. Hence the origin of the first quarrel of 
the Natchez with the French, to which Bienville put 
an end, with such signal success, but with a little 
sprinkling of treachery. 

It was not the Natchez alone whom Cadillac had of- 
fended. He had alienated from the French the affections 
of the Choctaws, who had always been their friends, but 
who, latterly, had invited the English to settle among 
them. Cadillac ordered them to expel their new guests, 
but the Choctaws answered that they did not care for him, 
nor for the forty or fifty French rogues whom he had 
under his command. This was the kick of the ass, and 
Cadillac resolved not to bear it, but to show them that 
the lion was not yet dead. After deep cogitations, he 
conceived, for their punishment, a politic stroke, which 
he carried into execution, and of which he informed his 
government, with Spartan brevity : "I have persuaded," 
said he, " the brother of the great chief of the Choc- 
taws to kill his sovereign and brother, pledging myself 
to recognize him as his successor. He did so, and came 
here with an escort of one hundred men. I gave him 
presents, and secured from him an advantageous peace." 



Cadillac's report on the state of Louisiana. 229 

Thus, it is seen that Cadillac, with a very bad 
grace, pretended that his tender sensibilities were 
shocked at the treatment of the Natchez chiefs by Bi- 
enville. In his case it was the eye with the beam 
finding fault with the mote in his neighbor's eye. 

On the 22nd of June, 1716, the exasperation of 
Cadillac, who found himself in a hornet's nest, had 
become such, that he vented his feelings in these 
terms, in one of his dispatches : "Decidedly this colony 
is a monster without head or tail, and its government is 
a shapeless absurdity. The cause of it is, that the fic- 
tions of fabulists have been believed in preference to 
the veracity of my declarations. Ah ! why is there in 
falsehood a charm which makes it more acceptable 
than truth ? Has it not been asserted that there are 
mines in Arkansas and elsewhere ? It is a deliberate 
error. Has not a certain set of novel writers pubhshed 
that this country is a paradise, when its beauty or 
utility is a mere phantasm of the brain ? I protest 
that, having visited and examined the whole of it with 
care, I never saw any thing so worthless. This I 
must say, because my conscience forbids me to deceive 
his Majesty. I have always regarded truth as a queen, 
whose laws 1 was bound to obey, like a devoted knight, 
and a faithful subject. This is, no doubt, the cause of 
my having stuck fast in the middle of my career, and 
not progressed in the path of promotion, whilst others. 



230 Cadillac's puoclamatioiv against duelling. 

who had more political skill, understood how to frame, 
at my expense, pleasing misrepresentations. I know 
how to govern as well as any body, but poverty and 
impotence are two ugly scars on the face of a governor. 
What can I do with a force of forty soldiers, out of 
whom five or six are disabled ? A pretty army that is, 
and well calculated to make me respected by the in- 
habitants or by the Indians ! As a climax to my vexa- 
tion, they are badly fed, badly paid, badly clothed, and 
without discipline. As to the officers, they are not 
much better. Verily, I do not believe that there is in 
the whole universe such another government." 

It is not surprising that, under such circumstances, 
and with the ideas which fermented in his head, Cadil- 
lac should have thought that a terrible crisis was at 
hand. Laboring under that impression, he took refuge 
in Dauphine Island, where he issued a proclamation, in 
which he stated that considering the spirit of revolt 
and sedition which reigned in the colony, and the many 
quarrels and duels which occurred daily and were pro- 
duced by hasty or imprudent words, by drunkenness, 
or by the presence of loose women, he prohibited all 
plebeians from wearing a sword, or carrying other 
weapons, either by day or by night, under the penalty 
of one month's imprisonment and of a fine of 300 
livres, to be applied to the construction of a church. 
As to persons of noble birth, they were to prove their 



HE IS RIDICULED BY HIS ENEMIES. 231 

right to wear a sword, by depositing their titles in the 
archives of the superior council, to be there examined 
and registered. Cadillac's enemies, and he had many, 
availed themselves of this proclamation to turn him 
into ridicule ; — they fabricated every sort of mock 
papers of nobility, to submit them to the superior 
council, the members of which, from ig;norance or from 
a desire to annoy Cadillac, referred the whole of them 
to him, who, as governor, was their president. Sadly 
puzzled was Cadillac on these occasions, and his judg- 
ments afforded infinite amusement to the colonists. 
His waggish tormentors went farther, and pretending 
to have formed an order of chivalry, they elected him, 
in a solemn meeting, grand master of that order, under 
the title of the Knight of the golden calf. They de- 
clared, with feigned gravity, that this was done in 
commemoration of the wonderful achievements and 
labors of their illustrious governor in his researches for 
precious metals. This piece of pleasantry stung him 
to the quick ; but he winced particularly at a song 
which, in alternate couplets, compared the merits of the 
Knight of the golden calf with those of the celebrated 
Knight of the doleful countenance, and gave the pre- 
ference to the first, 

Cadillac was preparing to repress these rebellious and 
heinous disorders, when he received a letter from Crozat, 
n which the great merchant told him bluntly, that all 



232 CADILLAC DISMISSED FROM OFFICE. 

the evils of which he complained, originated from his 
own bad administration. At the foot of the letter, the 
minister of the marine department had written these 
words : " The governor, Lamothe Cadillac, and the 
commissary, Duclos, whose dispositions and humors 
are incompatible, and whose intellects are not equal to 
the functions with which his Majesty has intrusted 
them, are dismissed from office." I leave it to a more 
graphic pen to describe Cadillac's look and Cadillac's 
feelings when this thunderbolt fell on his head. Suffice 
it to say, that he contemptuously shook off his feet the 
colonial dust which had there gathered, and bundling 
up his household gods, removed himself and them out 
of Louisiana, which he pronounced to be hell-doomed. 
At that time, there were only a few negroes in the 
colony, and they were all to be found about Mobile or 
in Dauphine Island. These were the only persons in 
whom some sympathy was discovered for the departing 
governor. This sympathy arose from a ludicrous cause. 
Cadillac had carried to America the fondest remem- 
brance of his home in Europe, and he loved to dilate 
on the merits of France, of his native province of Gas- 
cony, of the beautiful river Garonne, and particularly 
of his old feudal tower, in which he pretended that one 
of his ancestors had been blest with the inestimable 
honor of receiving the famous Black Prince, the boast 
of England. There was hardly one day in the week 



THE CURATE DE LA VENTE. 233 

that he did not harp upon this favorite theme, which he 
always resumed with new exultation. There was not 
a human creature in the colony, with the exception of 
the Indians, who was not familiar with this oft-repeated 
anecdote, which had gained for Cadillac the nickname 
of the Black Prince. It became a sort of designation 
by which he was as well known as by his own family 
name ; and the poor Africans, who frequently heard it, 
had supposed that Cadillac drew his origin from a prince 
of their blood and color. This was to them a source 
of no little pride, and to the colonists a cause of endless 
merriment. 

There was another person who highly appreciated 
Cadillac, and who keenly regretted his dismissal from 
office : that person was the Curate de la Vente. No 
Davion was he, nor did he resemble a Montigny. With 
a pale face and an emaciated body ; with a narrow 
forehead, which went up tapering like a pear ; with 
thin compressed lips, never relaxed by a smile ; with 
small gray eyes, occupying very diminutive sockets, 
which seemed to have been bored with a gimlet ; and 
with heavy and shaggy eyebrows, from beneath which 
issued, habitually, cold and even stern looks ; he would 
have struck the most unobserving, as being the very 
personification of fanaticism. When he studied, to 
qualify himself for his profession, he had, several times, 
read the Bible and the Gospels through ; but his little 

11* 



234 THE CURATE DE LA VENTE. 

mind had then stuck to the letter, and had never been 
able to comprehend the spirit, of the holy books. Like 
a fly, it had moved all round the flask which contained 
the sweet liquor, without being able to extract the 
slightest particle of it. When ordained a priest, the 
Bible and the Gospels were consigned to oblivion. 
For him, kneeling was prayer, and prayer was religion. 
Christianity, which is the triumph of reason, because it 
exacts no belief but that which flows from rational 
conviction, was, according to his conception, nothing 
but a mysterious and inexplicable hodge-podge of crude 
and despotic dictates, to be accepted on trust and sub- 
mitted to without reflection, discussion, or analysis of 
any kind : for him, thought in such matters would have 
been a grievous sin ; his breviary w^as the only book 
which he had read for many years, and he laid to his 
soul the flattering unction that he was a pious man, 
because he minutely complied w^ith the ritual of his 
church. He fasted, did penance, and never failed 
reciting, in due time, all the litanies. Thus, observing 
strictly all the forms and discipline of the Roman Cath- 
olic faith, he thought himself a very good Christian. 
But every man who did not frequently confess to a 
priest, and did not receive the sacraments as often as 
the catechism of his creed required, v/as, in his opinion, 
no better than a pagan, and was entirely out of the 
pale of salvation. Animated with the fierce zeal of a 



THE CURATE DE LA VENTE. 235 

bigot, he would not have scrupled, if in his power, to 
use the strong hand of violence to secure converts, and 
to doom to the stake and to the fagot, the unbeliever 
in all the tenets, whether fundamental or incidental, of 
Catholicism : for his religion consisted in implicit be- 
lief in all the prescriptions of his church, and his church 
was God. Hence, all government which was not the- 
ocratical, or bordering on it, he looked upon as an un- 
lawful and sinful assumptionof power, which the church, 
by all means, was bound to take back, as its legitimate 
property. 

With such dispositions, the Curate de la Vente soon 
became the terror of his flock, whose frailties he de- 
nounced w^ith the epileptic violence of a maniac, and 
whose slightest delinquencies he threatened with eter^ 
nal damnation. A fanatic disciplinarian, he had been 
shocked at the laxity with which the soldiers, the offi- 
cers, the Canadian boatmen and traders, and the other 
colonists, performed their religious duties. He did not 
take into consideration that a judicious allowance ought 
to be made for the want of education of some, for the 
temptations which peculiar circumstances threw in the 
way of others, and for the particular mode of life to 
which all were condemned, and which might be re- 
ceived in extenuation, if not in justification of many 
faults. He might have reclaimed some by the soothing 
gentleness of friendly admonition : he discouraged or 



236 THE CURATE DE LA VENTE. 

disgusted all by the roughness of intemperate reproach. 
Aware of the aversion which he had inspired, and in- 
dignant at the evil practices in which some indulged 
openly from inclination, and others, out of vain bravado 
to a minister they detested, he had supported Cadillac 
in all the acts of his administration, in all his represen- 
tations of the state of the country ; and he had himself 
more than once written to the ministry, that God would 
never smile upon a colony inhabited by such demons, 
heathens, and scoffers at the Holy Church ; and he had 
recommended, not a Saint Bartholomew execution, it 
is true, but a general expulsion of all the people that 
were in the colony, in order to replace them with a 
more religious-minded community. As to the Indians, 
he considered them as sons of perdition, who offered 
few hopes, if any, of being redeemed from the bondage 
of Satan. 

Seeing that the Ministry had paid no attention to 
his recommendations, he had determined to make, out 
of the infidels by whom he was surrounded, as much 
money as he could, which he intended to apply to the 
purpose of advancing the interests of the church, in 
some more favorable spot for the germination of eccle- 
siastical domination. With this view, he made no 
scruple to fatten upon the Philistines, and he opened a 
shop, where he kept for sale, barter, or exchange, a 
variety of articles of trade. He disposed of them at a 



THE CURATE DE LA VENTE. 337 

price of which the purchasers complained as being most 
unconscionable ; and he also loaned money to the Gen- 
tiles, at a rate of interest which was extravagantly 
usurious. As a salvo to his conscience, he had adopted 
the comfortable motto that the end justifies the means. 
The benighted Indians and the unchristian Christians 
(to use his own expressions) were not spared by him. 
When the circumstance was too tempting, and he had 
to deal with notorious unbelievers, he would even in- 
dulge in what he would have called actual cheating, if 
coming from a Christian dealing with a Christian. On 
these occasions, he would groan piteously, cross himself 
devoutly, fall on his knees before the image of our Sa- 
vior, and striking his breast with compunction, he would 
exclaim, " O sweet Jesus, if this be an infraction of thy 
law, it is at least a trifling one, and it is done for the 
benefit of thy church : forgive me, O Lamb of mercy, 
and I will, in expiation, say twelve paters and twelve 
aves at the foot of the altar of thy Virgin Mother, or 
I will abstain a whole day from all food, in thy honor." 
After this soliloquy, he would get up, perfectly recon- 
ciled with himself and with his Maker, to whom, in 
those cases, he always took care to keep his plighted 
word. Many a time, his worldly transactions for the 
glorification of the church, and for the increase of 
church property at the expense of those he considered 
as infidels, forced him to enter into such strange com- 



238 ST. DENIS. 

promises with his conscience and with his God. Hence 
the origin of the accusation brought against him by 
Bienville, in one of his dispatches,' and which I have 
already reported, " that he kept open shop, and was a 
shrewd compound of the Jew and of the Arab." The 
truth is, that he was sincere in his mistaken faith, pious 
to the best of his understanding, a Christian in will 
although not in fact, a zealous priest in his way, which 
he thought a correct one, and a lamentable compound 
of fanaticism and imbecility. 

In August, 1716, a short time before the recall of 
Cadillac, there had returned to Mobile a young man 
named St. Denis, who was a relation of Bienville, and 
whom, two years before, Cadillac had sent to Natchi- 
toches, to oppose the Spaniards in an establishment 
which it was reported they intended to make in that 
part of the country. His orders were, to proceed after- 
wards to New Mexico, to ascertain if it would not be 
possible to establish in that direction internal relations 
of commerce between Louisiana and the Mexican pro- 
vinces, where it was hoped that Crozat would find a 
large outlet for his goods. When St. Denis arrived at 
the village of the Natchitoches, hearing no tidings of 
the supposed expedition of the Spaniards, he left there 
a few Canadians, whom he ordered to form a settle- 
ment ; and, accompanied by twelve others, who were 
picked men, and by a few Indians, he undertook to ac- 
complish the more difficult part of his mission 



HIS CHARACTER. 239 

I would recommend this expedition of St. Denis, 
and his adventures, to any one in search of a subject for 
literary composition. It is a fruitful theme, affording 
to the writer the amplest scope for the display of tal- 
ent of the most varied order. St. Denis is one of the 
most interesting characters of the early history of 
Louisiana. 

" He hither came, a private gentleman, 
But young and hrave, and of a family 
Ancient and noble." 

He v/as a knight-errant in his feelings and i^i his 
doings throughout life, and every thing connected 
with him, or that came within the purview of his ex- 
istence, was imbued with the spirit of romance. The 
noble bearing of his tall, well proportioned, and re- 
markably handsome person was in keeping with the 
lofty spirit of his soul. He was one in whom nature 
had given the world assurance of a man, and that as- 
surance w^as so strongly marked in the countenance of 
St. Denis, that wherever he appeared, he instanta- 
neously commanded love, respect, and admiration. 
There are beings who carry in their lineaments the 
most legible evidence of their past and future fate. 
Such was St. Denis, and nobody, not even the wild 
and untutored Indian, could have left his presence, 
without at least a vague imp- ^ssion that he had seen 



240 JOURNEY OF ST. DENIS TO MEXICO. 

one, not born for the common purposes of ordinary- 
life. 

The laborious journey of St. Denis, from Mobile 
to Natchitoches, the incidents connected with it, the 
description of the country he passed through, and of 
all the tribes of Indians he visited, would furnish suf- 
ficient materials for an interesting book. But what an 
animated picture might be drawn of that little band of 
Canadians, with St. Denis and his friend Jallot, the ec- 
centric surgeon, when they crossed the Sabine, and 
entered upon the ocean-like prairies of the present 
state of Texas ! How they hallooed with joy, w^hen 
they saw the immense surface which spread before 
them, blackened with herds of bufialoes, that wallowed 
lazily in the tall luxuriant grass, which afforded them 
such luscious food and such downy couches for repose ! 
For the sake of variety, the travellers would some- 
times turn from nobler to meaner game, from the 
hunchbacked buffalo to the timid deer that crossed 
their path. Sometimes they would stumble on a 
family of bears, and make, at their expense, a de- 
licious repast, which they enjoyed comfortably seated 
on piled-up skins, the testimonials of their hunting ex- 
ploits. Oh ! there is sweetness in the prairie air, there 
is a richness of health and an elasticity of spirit, 

"Which bloated ease ne'er deigned to taste." 



SURGEON JALLOT. 241 

But these pleasures, exciting as they were, would 
perhaps have palled upon St. Denis and his compan- 
ions, and might, in the end have been looked upon as 
tame by them, from the frequency of their repetition, 
if they had not been intermingled with nobler sport, 
which consisted in oft-recurring skirmishes with the 
redoubtable Comanches, upon whose hunting grounds 
they had intruded. On these occasions, St. Denis, 
protected against the arrows of the enemy by a full 
suit of armor, which he had brought from Europe, and 
mounted on a small black jennet, as strong as an ox 
and as fleet as the wind, would rush upon the aston- 
ished Indians, and perform such feats with his battle- 
axe, as those poor savages had never dreamed of. 
These encounters gave infinite satisfaction to Jallot, 
who was a passionate lover of his art, and who never 
was seen in a good humor, except when he was tending 
a wound. In that respect, with the Indians he had very 
little chance, except it be that of dissecting them, for. 
in most cases, the stroke of the white man's weapon 
was certain and instantaneous death. But he found 
some compensation in the numerous wounds inflicted 
by the Indians on his own companions ; he had a fond- 
ness for arrow wounds, which he declared to be the 
nicest and genteelest of all wounds. One day, he was 
so delighted with a wound of this kind, which he pro- 
nounced, much to the exasperation of his patient, to 



242 ST, DENIS ARIIESTED 

be supremely beautiful, that he actually smiled with 
self-gratulation and cracked a joke ! — to do this, his 
excitement must have been immense. Another day, 
when an Indian had been struck down by the battle-axe 
of St. Denis, without, however, being killed outright, 
he felt such a keen professional emotion at the pros- 
pect of probing and nursing a gash which he thought 
rare and extraordinary, that he franticly jumped upon 
St. Denis, hugged him with enthusiasm, called him his 
best friend, passionately thanked him for the most valu- 
able case he had given him, and swore that his Indian 
should be carried on, whatever impediment it might 
be to their march, until he died or w^as cured. Who 
would have thought that this man, wdien he was not 
wieldino^ his surmcal instruments, was the most hu- 
mane being in the world, and concealed, under an ap- 
pearance of crabbed malignity, the tenderest sensibili- 
ties of the heart ? Such are the mysteries of human 
nature ! 

St. Denis and his troop reached at last the Rio 
Bravo, at a Spanish settlement then called the Fort of 
St. John the Baptist, or Presidio del Norte. Don Pedro 
de Villescas was then the commander of that place. 
He received the French with the most courteous hos- 
pitality, and informed them that he could not make 
any commercial arrangements with them, but that he 
would submit their propositions to a superior oilicer. 



BY THE GOVERNOR OF CAOUIS. 243 

who was governor of the town of Caouis, situated at 
the distance of one hundred and eighty miles in the 
interior. Spaniards are not famous for rapidity of ac- 
tion. Before the message of Villescas was carried to 
Caouis, and before the expected answer came back to 
the Presidio del Norte, St. Denis had loved, not with- 
out reciprocity, the beautiful daughter of the old Don. 
What a pretty tale might be made of it, which would 
deserve to be written with a feather dropped from 
Cupid's wing ! But when the lovers were still hesitat- 
ing as to the course they would pursue, and discussing 
the propriety of making a full disclosure to him who, 
in the shape of a father, was the arbiter of their des- 
tiny, there arrived twenty-five men, sent by Don Gas- 
pardo Anaya, the governor of Caouis, with secret in- 
structions, Vv^hich were soon made manifest, to the dis- 
may of the lovers ; for, these emissaries seized St. 
Denis and his friend Jallot, and conveyed them to 
Caouis, where they were detained in prison until 
the beginning of 1715. From his place of confine- 
ment, St. Denis, fearing that the hostility evinced 
towards him, might be extended to the rest of his 
companions, ordered them to return speedily to Natchi- 
toches. 

Ye Bulwers of America, I invite your attention ! 
Here history presents you with the ready-made ground- 
work for whatever superstructure and embellishments 



244 THE LOVES of ST. DENIS 

you may choose to imagine for the amusement of your 
readers. 

Don Gaspardo Anaya had been the unsuccessful 
suitor of Dona Maria, the daughter of Villescas. 
What must have been his rage, when he v^^as informed 
by his spies that the new comer, the brilHant French- 
man, had triumphed, where he had failed? But now, 
he had that hated rival in his clutches, and he was 
omnipotent, and if the stranger died in the dungeon of 
Caouis, who, in these distant and rugged mountains, 
would bring him, the governor, to an account ? Peril- 
ous indeed was the situation of St. Denis, and heavy 
must have been his thoughts in his solitary confine- 
ment! But what must have been his indignation 
when, one day, Anaya descended into his dark cell, 
and told him that he should be set free, on condition 
that he withdrew his plighted faith to the daughter of 
Villescas ! How swelled the loyal heart of the captive 
at this base proposal ! He vouchsafed no answer, but 
he gave his oppressor such a look as made him stagger 
back and retreat with as much precipitation, as if the 
hand of immediate punishment had been lifted up 
against him. 

For six months, St. Denis was thus detained pris- 
oner, and the only consideration which saved his life, 
was the hope, on the part of Anaya, that prolonged 
sufferings would drive his victim to comply with his 



AND DONNA MARIA. 245 

request. At the same time, he repeatedly sent secret 
messengers to Dona Maria, whose mission was to in- 
form her that her lover would be put to death, if she 
did not wed Anaya. But the noble Castilian maid 
invariably returned the same answer : " Tell Anaya 
that I cannot marry him, as long as St. Denis lives, 
because St. Denis I love ; and tell him that if St. 
Denis dies, this little Moorish dagger, which was my 
mother's gift, shall be planted, either by myself, or by 
my agent's hand, in the middle of his dastardly heart, 
wherever he may be." This was said with a gentle 
voice, with a calm mien, as if it had been an ordinary 
message, but with such a gleam in the eye as is no- 
where to be seen except in Spain's or Arabia's daugh- 
ters. The words, the look and the tone were minutely 
reported to Anaya, and he paused ! — and it is well that 
he did so, and a bolder heart than his would have hesi- 
tated ; he knew the indomitable spirit of his race — he 
knew the old Cantabrian blood — and that Spain's 
sweetest doves will, when roused, dare the eagle to 
mortal combat ! 

The Spanish maid did not remain inactive, and 
satisfied with deploring her lover's captivity. She 
despatched to Mexico a trusty servant, such as is only 
found in Spanish households, one of those menials that 
never question the will of their lord or lady, dogs for 
fidelity, lions for courage, who will tear to pieces what- 



246 ST. DENIS SENT PRISONER 

ever is designated to them, if such be the order of 
their masters. His mission was to find out the means 
of informing the Viceroy, that a Frenchman, a pre- 
sumed spy, had been for several months in the hands 
of the governor of Caouis, who was suspected of 
conceahng his captive from the knowledge of the 
higher authorities, in order to tamper with his prisoner 
for a ransom. The object of this false information 
was to excite the jealous attention of the government, 
and to withdraw St. Denis, at all risks, from the dan- 
gerous situation he was in. This stratagem succeeded, 
and much to his astonishment, Anaya received a 
peremptory order to send his prisoner to Mexico, 
with a sure escort, and at the peril of his head, if he 
failed ! 

One morning, St. Denis found himself suddenly 
seated on a strong, powerful horse, amidst a detach- 
ment of twenty men, who were evidently prepared for 
a long journey. He asked whither he was to be car- 
ried, and was particularly inquisitive about his friend 
Jallot, who had been put into a separate dungeon, and 
of whom he had heard nothing since his captivity, but 
he was dragged away, without any answer being 
given to his inquiries. Seven hundred and fifty miles 
did he travel without stopping, except it be for such 
time as was absolutely necessary to take a hurried rest, 
when the magnificent city of Mexico burst upon his 



TO THE CITY OF MEXICO. 247 

sight, in all its imperial splendor. There, he flattered 
himself that he would obtain justice, but he soon expe- 
rienced that change of place had been for him no more 
than a change of captivity. Look at the woe-begone 
prisoner in that horrible dungeon, where he is chained 
to the wall, like a malefactor! His constitution is 
completely broken down ; his body is so emaciated by 
his long sufferings and by the want of wholesome food, 
that it presents the appearance of a skeleton ; his long 
matted hair shrouds his face, and his shaggy beard 
hangs down to his breast. Who would have recog- 
nized the brilliant St. Denis in this miserable object, in 
this hideous-looking, iron-bound felon — a felon in 
aspect, if not in reality! 

One day, an unusual stir was observed in front of 
his prison. The short, brief word of command outside, 
the clashing of arms, the heavy tramping of horses, St. 
Denis could distinctly hear in his dismal abode. The 
noise approached ; the doors of his cell turned slowly 
on their rusty hinges ; on came the bustling and obse- 
quious jailer, ushering in an officer, who was escorted 
by a file of soldiers. It was one whom the Viceroy 
had ordered to examine into the situation of all the 
prisons of Mexico, and to make a report on their un- 
fortunate tenants. " Who have we here ?" said the 
officer, in an abrupt tone. " I," exclaimed St. Denis, 
starting to his feet, " I, Juchereau de St. Denis, a gen- 



248 ROMANTIC RELEASE OF 

tleman by birth, a prisoner by oppression, and now a 
suitor for justice." On hearing these words, the officer 
started back and looked wild with astonishment ; then, 
rushing to St. Denis, and putting his face close to his 
face, removing with his trembling hand the dishevelled 
locks that concealed the prisoner's features, and scan- 
ning every lineament with a rapid but intense look, he 
said, with a quivering voice, which, through emotion, 
had sunk to a whisper, " You were born in Canada ?" 
" Yes." " Educated in France, at the Royal College of 
Paris ?" " Yes." " You left France to seek your for- 
tune in Louisiana ?" " I did." " By heaven, jailer, off 
with these accursed chains ! quick ! set those noble 
limbs free !" And he threw himself sobbing into the 
arms of the astonished St. Denis, who thought himself 
the dupe of a dream, but who at last recognized in his 
liberator, one of the companions of his youth, his best 
early friend, the Marquis de Larnage, who, with some 
other young Frenchmen, had entered into the Spanish 
army, and who had risen to be the Viceroy's favorite 
aid-de-camp. What a dramatic scene ! And would 
not this incident of Louisianian history be welcomed 
on the stage by an American audience ! 

What a change ! Here we are in the gorgeous 
halls of Montezuma, where the barbaric splendor of the 
Aztec emperors has been improved by the more correct 
and tasteful application of Spanish magnificence : there 
is a festival at the palace of the Viceroy : — 



ST. DENIS FROM PRISON. 249 

" The long carousal shakes the illumined hall ; 
Well speeds alike the banquet and the ball." 

Noble and beautiful dames ! — Silk, brocade, and dia- 
monds ! — Gentlemen of high birth — renowned soldiers 
— glittering uniforms, studded with stars and other de- 
corations — breasts scarred with wounds — brains teem- 
ing with aspirations — grave magistrates — sage council- 
lors — subtle diplomatists — scheming heads ! What sub- 
jects for observation ! The walls are alive with paint- 
ings which court the eye, or ornamented with mirrors 
which multiply the reflected beauty of the glorious pa- 
geantry. Now and then, scions of the greatest houses 
of Spain ; younger sons, that had been sent to Mexico 
to better their fortunes ; men whose names, when pro- 
nounced, sound like a trumpet inciting to heroic ex- 
ploits, would make their appearance, and to let them 
pass, the crowd of brilliant guests would reverentially 
open their ranks. Such is the involuntary respect paid, 
mechanically as it were, to those who carry round their 
foreheads the agglomerated rays derived, through the 
magnifying focus of one thousand years, from the his- 
torical distinction of a long, uninterrupted line of illus- 
trious ancestors ! 

Suddenly, the large folding doors of an inner apart- 
ment are thrown open, and the Viceroy is seen at table, 
with a few favored and envied guests, enjoying the 
delicacies of the most gorgeous banquet. What an 

12 



250 AFFECTION OF THE VICEROY FOR ST. DENJS. 

accumulated treasure of gold and silver, under every 
form that convivial imagination can fancy, and in the 
shape of plates, dishes, chandeliers, and every sort of 
admirably chiseled vases ! But who is that noble-look- 
ing cavalier on the right-hand side of the Viceroy? Can 
it be St. Denis, the late tenant of a gloomy jail ? It is. 
Presented by his friend, the aid-de-camp, to the repre- 
sentative of the Majesty of Spain, to the Duke of Li- 
nares, he has become such a favorite that his daily and 
constant attendance is required at court. Nay, the 
affection which the Viceroy had conceived for St. Denis, 
had so grown upon that nobleman, that he had insisted 
upon the young Frenchman being lodged in the palace, 
where every favor was at his command. The whole 
city of Mexico had been convulsed with astonishment 
at the unexpected turn of fortune, which was the lot 
of the foreign adventurer. Marvelous indeed, and in- 
explicable did the fascination exercised by St, Denis on 
the Viceroy, seem to the multitude ! Instead of attri- 
buting it perhaps to its true cause, to the congenial 
affinity of mind to mind, and of heart to heart, they 
indulged in a thousand wild conjectures. At last, these 
surmises had settled in the belief that St. Denis had 
saved the life of the Viceroy, in a nocturnal adventure. 
It was positively ascertained, however, that St. Denis, 
a short time after his liberation, passing in a secluded 
street, heard the clashing of swords. Rushing to the 



TEMPTATION OF ST, DENIS. 251 

spot from which the noise of conflict came, he saw a 
man with a mask on his face, and with his back to the 
wall of a house, who was sorely pressed by three other 
men, masked also, who were attacking him with the 
greatest fury. St. Denis took side with the weaker 
party, and put to flight the cowardly assassins. He 
never said to whom he had rendered such an eminent 
service, and if he knew — 

" He shunned to show, 



As hardly worth a stranger's care to know ; 

If still more prying such inquiry grew. 

His brow fell darker, and his words more few." 

His secret died with him ! 

Amidst all the festivities of the vice-regal court, 
St. Denis had but one thought, one aspiration, that of 
returning to his lady love, and to his friend Jallot. He 
had even refused the most brilliant proposals from the 
Viceroy, such as a high grade in the Spanish army, 
saying, " I can serve but one God and one king. I am 
a Frenchman, and highly as I esteem the Spaniards, I 
cannot become one." " But," replied the Viceroy, "you 
are already half a Spaniard, for you have confessed to 
me that you love a Spanish maid." " True," observed 
St. Denis, " but it is not certain that I can marry her, 
because I consider her father's consent as doubtful" 
"Well then, accept my offers," exclaimed the Viceroy, 



252 ST. DENIS REMAINS FIRM. 

" and I pledge my knightly word to remove every 
obstacle that may be in your way." St. Denis ex- 
pressed his thanks, as one overwhelmed with gratitude 
at such kindness, but could not be shaken from his 
determination. " At least," continued the Viceroy, " do 
me one favor. Do not depart now. Take two months 
for reflection on what you reject. When that delay 
shall have expired, I will again put this question to you 
— will you attach yourself to my person, and transfer 
your allegiance from the Bourbons of France to the 
Bourbons of Spain ?" The two months rapidly flew 
by, and the chivalric St. Denis remained firm to his 
purpose. " To lose such a man as you are," said the 
Viceroy, " is a serious trial to me, but I admire, even in 
its exaggeration, the sentiment by which you are actu- 
ated. Farewell, then, and may God bless you and 
yours forever. My last hope is, that Dona Maria will 
induce you to adopt New Spain for your country. 
With regard to the commercial relations, w^hich, in the 
name of the governor of Louisiana, you have asked 
me to permit between that province and those of my 
government, tell him that it is not in my power to 
accede to his propositions." The preparations of St. 
Denis for his departure were not of long duration, for 
the lady of his heart beckoned to him from the walls 
of the Presidio del Norte. The Viceroy presented him 
with a large sum in gold, which he graciously said, was 



JALLOT AND THE GOVERNOR OF CAOUIS. 253 

intended to pay his wedding expenses. He also sent 
him, for his journey, a superb Andalusian steed, order- 
ing at the same time that he should be escorted by an 
officer and two dragoons from the city of Mexico to 
Caouis. 

On the forced departure of St. Denis for the city 
of Mexico, Jallot had been set at liberty, and had ever 
since remained at Caouis waiting for the decision of 
the fate of St. Denis. He was known to be a physi- 
cian, and as he was the only one within a radius of 
one hundred miles, he was soon in full practice. In 
the course of a few months, he had performed so many 
cures and rendered so many services, that he was 
looked upon as something almost supernatural. One 
day, he was summoned to the house of the governor, 
Don Gaspardo Anaya, whither he went with such a 
grim smile as clearly indicated that his feelings were 
in a violent state of excitement. He examined, with 
the most minute care, the body of that dignitary, and 
on his being asked his opinion on the situation of his 
patient, he went into' the most luminous exposition of 
his disease, and declared that if a certain operation, 
which he described with much apparent gusto, was not 
performed, the sick man would certainly die within 
one month. " Well then," said the governor, " go on 
with the operation, as soon as you please." " It shall 
never please me," cried Jallot, in a voice of thunder ; 



254 KETURN OE ST. DENIS 

and shaking his fist at the enemy of St. Denis, whom, 
in his turn, he had now in his power, he doggedly 
withdrew from the house of the infuriated governor. 
Remonstrances, entreaties, large offerings of money, 
threats, could not bring him back. At last, the gov- 
ernor swore that he would hang Jallot, and he sent 
some soldiers to arrest him. But the people, who loved 
Jallot, and feared being deprived of his invaluable ser- 
vices, rose upon the soldiery, beat them off, and pro- 
claimed that they would hang the governor himself, if 
he persisted in his intention of hanging Jallot. Mat- 
ters were in this ticklish situation, when St. Denis re- 
turned to Caouis. 

In company with his friend Jallot, who was almost 
distracted with joy at his safe return, St. Denis imme- 
diately waited upon the governor, to whom he commu- 
nicated a letter patent, by which the Viceroy gave 
authority to St. Denis to inflict upon Anaya, for his 
abuse of power, any punishment which he might think 
proper, provided it stopped short of death. The terror 
of the governor may easily be conceived, but after en- 
joying his enemy's confusion for a short time, St. Denis 
tore to pieces the Viceroy's letter, and retired, leaving the 
culprit, whom he despised, to the castigation of heaven 
and to the stings of his own conscience. He did more: 
he had the generosity to request Jallot to perform the 
operation which this worthy had hitherto so obstinately 



TO THE PRESIDIO DEL NORTE. 255 

refused to do. The surgeon, who was molHfied by his 
friend's return, consented, not however without terrific 
grumbhngs, to use his surgical skill to relieve the bed- 
ridden governor, and he admirably succeeded in the 
difficult operation upon which the fate of his patient 
depended. But he peremptorily and contemptuously 
refused the fee that was tendered him, and informed 
the governor, face to face, and with his roughest tone, 
that he deserved no remuneration for the cure, because 
he had saved his life merely out of spite, and under the 
firm conviction that he would ere long die on the gal- 
lows. 

Let us now rapidly proceed with St. Denis from 
Caouis to the Presidio del Norte. There he found a 
great change ; — not that the lady of his love was not 
as true and as beautiful as ever, but the place looked 
lonesome and desolate. The five Indian villages which 
formed a sort of belt round the Presidio, at a short 
distance from its walls, were deserted. A gloomy 
cloud had settled over the spot which he had known so 
brisk and thriving ; — and Villescas told him, with the 
greatest consternation, that the Indians had withdrawn 
on account of their having been molested by the 
Spaniards, who used to go to their villages, and there 
commit every sort of outrage ; that he confessed he 
was much to be blamed for not having checked sooner 
the disorderly practices of his subordinates ; and that 

12* 



256 EMIGRATION OF THE INDIANS 

if the Indians persisted in their intention of removing 
away to distant lands, the government at Mexico, whose 
settled policy it was to conciliate the frontier Indians, 
would be informed of what had happened, and would 
certainly visit him with punishment for official miscon- 
duct, negligence or dereliction of duty. " I will run 
after the fugitives," exclaimed St. Denis, " and use my 
best efforts to bring them back." " Do so," replied the 
old man, " and if you succeed, there is nothing in my 
power, which I can refuse you." On hearing these 
words, which made his heart thrill, as it were, with an 
electric shock, St. Denis vaulted on his good Andalu- 
sian steed, and started full speed in the direction the 
Indians had taken. He was followed, far behind, by 
Jallot, who came trotting along, as fast as he could, on 
a restive, capricious, ill-looking little animal, for whom 
he had perversely conceived the greatest affection, 
perhaps, on account of his bad qualities. 

The Indians, encumbered with women and chil- 
dren, had been progressing very slowly, with the heavy 
baggage they were carrying v/ith them, and St. Denis 
had not travelled long before he discovered from the 
top of a hill, the moving train ; he waved a white flag 
and redoubled his speed ; the Indians stopped and tar- 
ried for his approach. When he came up to them, they 
formed a dense circle around him, and silently waited 
for his communication. " My friends !" said St. Denis, 



FROM THE PRESIDIO. 257 

" I am sent by the governor of the Presidio del Norte, . 
to tell you that he pleads guilty to his red children ; 
he confesses that you have been long laboring under 
grievances which he neglected to redress, and that you 
have been frequently oppressed by those whom it was 
his duty to keep in the straight path of rectitude. 
This is a frank avowal, as you see. With regard t 
the governor himself, you know that he has always 
been kind and upright, and • that, personally and inten- 
tionally, he has never wronged any one of you : the old 
chief has been too weak with his own people — that is 
all you can say against him. But now, he pledges his 
faith that no Spaniard shall be allowed to set his foot 
in your villages without your express consent, and 
that every sort of protection which you may claim 
shall be extended over your tribe. Do not, therefore, 
be obstinate, my friends, and do not keep shut the gates 
of your hearts, when the pale-faced chief, with his 
gray hairs, knocks for admittance, but let his words of 
repentance fall upon your souls, like a refreshing dew, 
and revive your drooping attachment for him. Do not 
give up your hereditary hunting grounds, the cemete- 
ries of your forefathers, and your ancestral villages, 
with rash precipitancy. Whither are you going ? 
Your native soil does not stick to your feet, and it is 
the only soil which is always pleasant ; and the wheat 
which grows upon it, is the only grain that will give 



258 ST. DENIS SPEECH TO THE INDIANS. 

you tasteful bread ; and the sun which shines upon it, 
is the only sun whose rays do not scorch ; and the re- 
freshing showers which fall upon its bosom, would 
elsewhere be impure and brackish water. You do not 
know what bitter w^eeds grow in the path of the 
stranger ! You do not know how heavily the air he 
breathes weighs on his lungs, in distant lands ! And 
what distant lands will you be permitted to occupy, 
without fighting desperate battles with the nations 
upon whose territory you will have trespassed ? When 
you will be no longer protected by the Spaniards, how 
will you resist the incessant attacks of the ferocious 
Comanches, who carry so far and wide their predatory 
expeditions ? Thus, my friends, the evils you are run- 
ning to, are certain, and behind them, lie concealed in 
ambush, still greater ones, which the keenest eye 
among you cannot detect. But what have you to fear, 
if you return to your deserted villages ? There, it is 
true, you will meet some old evils, but you are accus- 
tomed to them. That is one advantage ; and, besides, 
you are given the assurance that to many of them a 
remedy will be applied. Why not make the experi- 
ment, and see how it will work? But if you persist 
in going away, and if you fare for the worse, your 
situation will be irretrievable. On the other hand, if 
you return, as I advise you, should the governor of the 
Presidio not keep his word, and should you not be sat- 



HE PREVAILS ON THEM TO RETURN. 259 

isfied, it will always be time enough to resume your 
desperate enterprise of emigration." 

This is the substance of what St. Denis told his 
red auditory, and the Indians, who, perhaps, were be- 
ginning to regret the step they had taken, spontane- 
ously marched back, with St. Denis riding triumph- 
antly at their head. They soon met Jallot, jogging 
along with impatience, cursing and spurring his favor- 
ite with desperate energy. When he saw that St. 
Denis, about whom he was extremely uneasy, was safe, 
and had succeeded so well in his embassy, he gave a 
shout which made the welkin ring ; but he was so as- 
tonished at his own doing, and at the unusual sound 
which had so strangely issued from his throat, that he 
looked round like a man who was not very sure of 
his own identity. Those who knew him well, re- 
mained convinced that this shout had settled in his 
mind, as the most extraordinary event of his life. 

Now, all is joy again at the Presidio, and the smile 
of contentment has lighted up the face of the country 
for miles around. From the Spanish battlements, ban- 
ners wave gayly, the cannons crack their sides with 
innocent roaring, muskets are discharged in every di- 
rection, but from their tubes, there do not sally any 
murderous balls ; the whole population^ white and red, 
is dressed in its best apparel ; whole sheep, oxen, and 
buffaloes are roasted in the Homeric style ; immense 



260 MARRIAGE OF ST. DENIS. 

tables are spread in halls, bowers, and under shady 
trees ; whole casks of Spanish wines and of the Mexi- 
can pulque are broached ; the milk and honey of the 
land flow with unrestrained abundance ; the Indians 
shout, dance, and cut every sort of antics. Well may 
all rejoice, for it is the wedding-day of St. Denis and 
Dona Maria! Here the long and beautiful procession 
which is slowly moving to the rustic parochial church, 
misrht be described with some etTect, but I leave the 
task to future novel writers. I now dismiss this epi- 
sode, and only regret that I have not done it the jus- 
tice which it deserves. Let me add, however, that, 
after an absence of two years, St. Denis, having re- 
turned to Mobile, with Don Juan de Villescas, the 
uncle of his wife, was appointed, in reward for the dis- 
charge of his perilous mission, a captain in the French 
army. 

On the recommendation of Crozat, another under- 
taking was made to open commercial relations with 
the Spanish provinces of Mexico. Three Canadians, 
Delery, Lufreniere and Beaujeu, were intrusted with 
a considerable amount of merchandise, went up Red 
River, and endeavored to reach the province of Nuevo 
Leon, through Texas ; — but this attempt was as unsuc- 
cessful as the one made by St. Denis. 

On the 9th of March, 1717, three ships belonging to 
Crozat, arrived with three companies of infantry and 



ARRIVAL OF DE L EPINAY. 261 

fifty colonists, with De TEpinay, the new governor, 
and Hubert, the king's commissary. L'Epinay brought 
to Bienville the decoration of the cross of St. Louis, 
and a royal patent, conceding to him, by mean tenure 
in soccage, Horn Island, on the coast of the present 
state of Alabama. Bienville had demanded in vain 
that it be erected in his favor, into a noble fief. 

Hardly had L'Epinay landed, when he disagreed 
with Bienville, and the colony was again distracted by 
two factions, with L'Epinay on one side and Bienville 
on the other. There were not at that time in Louisi- 
ana more than seven hundred souls, including the 
mihtary; and thus far, the efforts of Crozat to increase 
the population had proved miserably abortive. In vain 
had his agents resorted to every means in their power, 
to trade with the Spanish provinces, either by land or 
by sea, either legally or illegally ; — several millions 
worth of merchandise which he had sent to Louisiana, 
with the hope of their finding their way to Mexico, 
had been lost, for want of a market. In vain also had 
expensive researches been made for mines, and pearl 
fisheries. As to the trading in furs with the Indians, it 
hardly repaid the cost of keeping factories among them. 
Thus, all the schemes of Crozat had failed. The mis- 
erable European population, scattered over Louisiana, 
was opposed to his monopoly, and contributed, as much 
as they could, to defeat his plans. As to the oflicers, 



262 CROZAT SURRENDERS HIS CHARTER. 

they were too much engrossed by their own interest 
and too intent upon their daily quarrels, to mind any 
thing else. There was but one thing which, to the 
despairing Crozat, seemed destined to thrive in Louis- 
iana — that was, the spirit of discord. 

In the beginning of the month of August, 1717, 
Crozat, finding that under the new governor, L'Epinay, 
things were likely to move as lamely as before, ad- 
dressed to the king a petition, in which he informed his 
Majesty, that his strength was not equal to the enter- 
prise he had undertaken, and that he felt himself 
rapidly sinking under the weight which rested on his 
shoulders, and from which he begged his Majesty to 
relieve him. On the 13th of the same month, the 
Prince of Bourbon and Marshal D'Estr^es accepted, in 
the name of the king, Crozat's proposition to give up 
the charter which he had obtained under the preceding 
reign. 

Against his adverse fate, Crozat had struggled for 
five years, but his efforts had been gradually slackening, 
in proportion with the declining health of his daughter. 
The cause of his gigantic enterprise had not escaped 
her penetration, and she had even extorted from him a 
full confession on the subject. In the first two years 
of her father's quasi sovereignty over Louisiana, she 
had participated in the excitement of the paternal 
breast, and had been buoyed up by hope. But although 



DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER. 263 

her father tried, with the utmost care, to conceal from 
her the ill success of his operations, she soon discovered 
enough to sink her down to a degree of despair, suffi- 
cient to undermine in her, slowly but surely, the frail 
foundations of life ; and when Crozat, losing all cou- 
rage, abandoned to the tossing waves of adversity, the 
ship in which he had embarked the fortune of his 
house, his daughter could hardly be called a being of 
this world. On the very day that he had resigned the 
charter, on which reposed such ambitious hopes, and 
had come back, broken-hearted, to his desolate home, 
he was imprinting a kiss on his daughter's pale fore- 
head, and pressing her attenuated hands within his 
convulsive ones, when her soul suddenly disengaged 
itself from her body, carrying away the last paternal 
embrace to the foot of the Almighty's throne. 

Crozat laid her gently back on the pillow, from 
which she had half risen, smoothed her clothes, joined 
her fingers as it were in prayer, and sleeked her hair 
with the palm of his hands, behaving apparently with 
the greatest composure. Not a sound of complaint, not 
a shriek of anguish was heard from him : his breast did 
not become convulsed with sobs ; not a muscle moved 
in his face. He looked as if he had been changed into 
a statue of stone : his rigid limbs seemed to move au- 
tomaton-like ; his eyeballs became fixed in their sockets, 
and his eyelids lost their powers of contraction. Calmly, 



264 crozat's death. 

but with an unearthly voice, he gave all the necessary 
orders for the funeral of his daughter, and even went 
into the examination of the most minute details of these 
melancholy preparations. Those who saw him, said 
that he looked like a dead man, performing with uncon- 
scious regularity all the functions of life. It was so 
appalling, that his servants and the few attending 
friends, who had remained attached to his falHng for- 
tune, receded with involuntary shudder from his ap- 
proach, and from the touch of his hand, it was so icy 
cold ! At last, the gloomy procession reached the solemn 
place of repose. The poor father had followed it on 
foot, with his hand resting on his daughter's coffin, as 
if afraid that what remained of the being he had loved 
so ardently, might flee away from him. When the 
tomb was sealed, he waved away the crov/d. They 
dared not disobey, when such grief spoke, and Crozat 
remained alone. For a while, he stood staring, as in a 
trance, at his daughter's tomb : then, a slight twitch of 
the muscles of the face, and a convulsive quiver of the 
lips might have been seen. Sensibility had returned ! 
He sunk on his knees, and from those eyes, so long dry, 
there descended, as from a thunder-cloud, a big heavy 
drop, on the cold sepulchral marble. It was but one 
sohtary tear, the condensed essence of such grief as the 
human body cannot bear ; and as this pearly fragment 
of the dew of mortal agony fell down on the xlaughter's 



CONCLUSION. 265 

sepulchre, the soul of the father took its flight to heaven. 
Crozat was no more ! 

" My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme 
Has died into an echo : it is fit 
The spell should break of this protracted dream — 
The torch shall be extinguished wliich hath lit 
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — 
Would it were worthier ! But I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow, 
Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint and lov/." 

" Farevv^ell ! a v/ord that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger — yet — farewell !" 



Note. — Crozat died in 1738, at the age of eighty-three. 
He had several sons and one daughter, Marie Anne Crozat, 
who married Le Comte D'Evreux. I hope I shall be forgiven 
for having slightly deviated from historical truth in the pre- 
ceding pages, with regard to particulars which I deemed of 
no importance. For instance, I changed the name of Crozat's 
daughter. Why ? Perhaps it was owing to some capricious 
whim — perhaps there is to me some spell in the name of 
Andrea. 

THE END. 



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STANDARD HISTORICAL WORKS. 

Published by D. Ajypleton Sf Co 
THE HISTORY OF ROME, 

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD. 

BY THOMAS AKNOLD, D. D., 

Late Head Maste: of Rugby School, and Regius Professor of History in the University of 

Oxibrd. 

Tlie three vohimes of the last London edition reprinted entire in two handsome 8vo. 

volumes. Price §5. 

" This is the last and unquestionably the best History of Rome, It is best not merely 

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have been devoted to the work. * * * * In his views of history, he admired and 

professedly imitated Niebuhr ; yet while he adopted many of the theories, and followed 

m the footstej)s of that great master of historical philosoplr/, he was not a copyist, nor a 

mere compiler, for his own work is replete with spirit and originality." — Cincinnati Atlas 

HISTORY OF 

THE LATER ROMAN COM?vION WE ALTH, 

BY THfeMAS ARNOLD, D. D. 
Two volumes of the English edition, in one handsome 8vo. volume. $2 50. 
This work forms an essential accompaniment to the two volumes of the Early History 
just published ; it brings the History down to the period of the final establishment of Uia 
Empire under Augustus. 

LECTURES ON MODERN HISTORY, 

BY THOMAS ARNOLD, D. D. 

With an Introduction and Notes, by Henry Reed, Professor of English Literature in 

the University of Pennsylvania. 

One handsome volume, 12mo. $1 25. 

" A better work than this, whether its intellectual or moral character be regarded, it 

seldom falls to the lot of an editor to notice." — Cincinnati JMorniii^ Herald. 

'' It is a book which will please the reader who seeks to gratify a literary taste, or love 
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" We commend it with great pleasure to all students of history, and to the lovers of 
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A MANUAL OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY, 

BY W. COOKE TAY'LOR, LL. D., 

Of Trinity College, Dublin. 

REVISED, WITH ADDITIONS ON AMERICAN HISTORY, 

BY C. S. HENRY, D. D., 

Professor of History in the University of Jfew-York. 

One handsome volume, Hvo., of 800 pages. $2 25. 

£^ For convenience as a Class-book, the Ancient or Modern portion can be hati 

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*' To the million who have neither the leisure nor the means of an extensive reading 

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" For a Text Book for Colleges and Academies, and for domestic nse, it is the best 
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HISTORY OF GERMANY, 

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME. 

BY FREDERICK KOHLRAUSCH, 
Chief of the Board of Education for the Kingdom of Hanover, and late Professor of 
History in the Polytechnic School. 
Translated from the "last German edition, by James D. Haas. 
Complete in one elegant 8vo. volume, of .500 pages, with complete Index, bound in 
clotii, fi.l 50. 
" Its ments are conciseness, olearness, and accuracy." — JSTcw Orleans Bee. 
'' It satisfat'orily sup .lies a vacancy which confessedly existed in English literature 
Rnd will prove a valuable and permanent addition to the historical department of oof 
libraries. ' ' — Southern Church man. 



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